Acceptance

You gave your whole life
to sun's sweltering heat,
as you plucked for hours
the foods that we'd eat.

Depleting more each day,
as you muscled-in your catch
that comforted your bosses
so they'll loosen hardship's latch.

You've become my superhero,
as you ripened each raw field.
I admired your brute strength.
when heavy tools you would wield.

Each night you'd come home calling
for my sisters to come mend
the blisters on your hands
where numbness would transcend.

I craved to share your burden,
but each time I would ask:
You'd say that I'm too youthful
for this enduring task.

"Your hands are too clean!
Go play with them and grow.
For when they are conditioned,
then life's seed you can sow."

But as time trickled on,
I felt destined for more.
And was bitten by books' pages,
that lay scattered on the floor.

One day a letter came
that told me there's more knowledge.
I left home without your favor
to attend this hopeful college.

Then later with excitement,
I returned to shout: Success!
At the growing of life's seed,
that used machines and my hands less.

"Look at me daddy!
See the mouths that I feed!"
But you winced in disappointment,
and preached your candid creed:

"Your hands are not stained!
It is grit that you lack!
If one aims to build character,
one must break their own back!"

I stared at you in longing
for my hero's loving glance.
Hoping you'd acknowledge
my heart's rhythmic solo dance.

But your soul was like your hands,
that matched callous with calus.
So I'd abandoned you for years
until we buried your malice.

"Look at me daddy!
See the towns I now feed!
My company blossoms.
So too the people I lead."

Yet from your cold grey tombstone,
came tormenting whispers loud.
And the deeds that I built vanished,
like tall buildings in a cloud.

"Did you condition your hands
with the feel of silt and sands?
If not, then you're a boy!
You've not become a man!"

Disgusted, I turned away.
My son was digging ground.
He seemed happy and content.
His fingers were now browned.

"Hey! Boy! Come here!
How much time have you spurned?
You will never be a man,
until all your books you have learned!"