The Poetry in Him

The poetry in him’s not hard to miss—
Lear’s Kent, steady servant, taking cover
when cynics stormed the stage, but never
hiding out. No lies in him, his honest
talk not florid, stripped of artifice
and ornament. Plain. Don’t take his silence
for indifference, don’t mistake it for a lack
of love, nor his boxer’s skill for violence,
his aptitude with axe and saw and maul
for bloodlust. Flawed? Yes, but what he hacked
apart he raised into a home, a small
solid shield against impending weather,
and at its heart a Jotul blazing hot.
My father was not a man who said a lot.

from Track & Trace