11.

I wanted for you what all fathers want:
a better world than the one handed to me

one of those out of the books I gave you:
all poetry and light, love and love and kindness

because those are the things that matter.

I tried, as all failures do, one more machine
Inadequate to the task.
We try. I tried. My parents tried. And theirs. And always, always, always with hope

and a little bitterness

when, at the onset of your long walk through
that the landscape falls short of prayers offered by these fumbling hands.

The world is far too ugly. But there is loveliness too
and love and love and poetry and light

that can build a better world
than what you were given.