It is here in Australia, anyway.

My own father went missing a few years ago and is not responding to messages. I send them anyway – not because I expect him to hear them but because I take some comfort in the sound of my own voice saying them.

I miss him.

My suspicion is that he has found a really good fishing spot somewhere and needs to keep it a secret. He will tell me when the time is right. When my own time has come.

And I should really have spent more than five minutes working on a poem in his honour. But he would have understood that I didn’t. He would not have judged. He would have laughed.

That’s the kind of relationship that we had.

***

Hello.

It’s Father’s Day again

Don’t think

That I’ve forgotten when

You held me in your arms

So tight

And read me fairy tales

At night

Protected me

From what you knew

Gently told me

What to do

Slowly told me

What was true

So I might one day

Be like you

***