POEM - (At the Very Least) That Binder Holds Letters

The three ring binder

Filled with correspondence  

That I haven't read

In over two decades

Sat there silently

Year after year

Moldering away

Haunting my peripheral

Ensuring I was always aware

Of exactly where it sat

I finally opened the cover

Just to read over

What I already knew was there

To skim over the expected contents

Surely herein lies a dry mixture

Of some deep doctrine

Interspersed with

Heavy philosophy

And sage admonitions

From a father to his son

The type of erudite epistles

Against which my own

Similar attempts

To my own children

Must surely pale

As I try to be that dad

That offers perceptive advise

Imparts ageless wisdom

And engenders understanding

Of the type which my memory

Swears I received liberally

But it wasn't entirely that way

I found instead

A lot of letters I might have written

Talking about the mundane

In a silly and comforting way

Joking around

Shooting the breeze

Being the dad

That all my friends thought was cool

Because he was that dad

This trove of intrinsic evidence

Helps me understand

That this guy I am

Was raised by that dude

The one in those letters

That was sometimes goofy

Who would send me articles

On cow flatulence

And in the next page

Remind me he cared for me

And tell me to be good

And it was never too serious

But it was never irreverent

It was just the words

Of a good dad

And I come by it honestly

This weird dad that I am