"My Father The Hero" (OBAA Life Lines Poem)

"My Father The Hero"

Sometimes you try to do something good
and end up being punished for it.
If he could have read his future
my father might have feared the headlights.

Such is the fate of many immigrant fathers, as
my father, a healer,
had been robbed of his power to heal.
Those who befriended him sought to rob him
And metamorphose him into a tragic, flawed beetle.

Those back in Adi
Kept my father in their hearts
As a measuring stick, as a lifelong
inspiration.

Remember your people.
Remember your people.

So I decided
I would always keep my father
the hero in my heart
tragic and flawed though he might be.

His heart saw angels
And he treated everyone as an angel,
saying,
“God sends angels to all of us.”