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A Poet on his Father

Donald P. Goodman III

Version 1.0 (18 June 1202)

Hear! The herald of him now speaks

who lays beneath; in love he lived;

in serving his sons and his wife he sought

the good of the Goodmans God gave to his charge.

He lived till death to donate his life

to those who depended on Dad; till death

his truth to his troth did not waver; I tell

the glory that's Goodman, which this man did grab;

his ancestor's honor, which from ancient times

gave glory to the great name of Goodman; his life

gave tribute to that tow'ring troth; it told

of service to something beyond the salt seas,

beyond e'en the lands beyond that; beyond

the reach of the realm of the world. So rich

this man thought he was; for his wife was a woman

and his sons were men, and they meant to maintain

the name that he, too, helped to make. Not noise

nor battle nor winds nor battering beasts

could sever his service to father and son.

But where now this father? To where has he fared?

His warmth has departed, his life has now passed.

For even such men must be mortal; e'en men

with his goodness must go 'fore the glory of God

to be judged. Once joyful, cheerful and jolly,

now clothed in dirt; now cold and dead,

the sons who so pleased him now sobbing their pleas

to the God who made Goodmans to give him to life.

So hear! I, his son and his herald, bid hark

to the words which my weeping addressed past the world

for the father who fought and lay dead, that the Father

whom he and I share might have mercy on him,

whose love for his family was like the great Father's

Whose Son on the mountain was murdered by men

so his brothers might live unto life. O Lord!

have mercy on him in your all-hallowed halls

and remember my tears, and my troth which I took

from the sinner who stands at your seat. Your own Son

once wept for Lazarus, and his weeping, Lord,

brought mercy on man; so my mother now weeps;

so also his sons are now seeking your sentence

for mercy on Goodman, whose goodness you made.

So hear! Now his herald beseeches, bids hark

to his plea to the people who hear now this poem

which he writes for the father who wrought such good works.

Please pray for my father for freedom from purging;

pay service to the tears of his son in his sorrow

and beg the Lord God to the glory of life

that this man be admitted. And may it e'er be;

over ages, eternity, eons, all time,

to the sounding of the last age of men. Soothly.

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