Dance with my Father – Luther Vandross
POEMS
FOR FATHER
A Father and a Dad
Are Not the Same
A father and a dad are not the same:
One can be a dad and not a father,
Or one can be a father and not bother
To earn through love the more endearing name.
Some find fatherhood a bit too tame,
Leaving all the details to the mother,
Or dumping the sweet burden on another
Man with just a passing twinge of shame.
You have been our dad so many years
That you've become the landscape that is home,
The mountain that we look to from afar.
No matter where we go we're not alone,
For you remain within to still our fears
And be the word that tells us who we are.
One can be a dad and not a father,
Or one can be a father and not bother
To earn through love the more endearing name.
Some find fatherhood a bit too tame,
Leaving all the details to the mother,
Or dumping the sweet burden on another
Man with just a passing twinge of shame.
You have been our dad so many years
That you've become the landscape that is home,
The mountain that we look to from afar.
No matter where we go we're not alone,
For you remain within to still our fears
And be the word that tells us who we are.
A Little Girl
Needs Daddy
A little girl
needs Daddy
For many, many things:
Like holding her high off the ground
Where the sunlight sings!
For many, many things:
Like holding her high off the ground
Where the sunlight sings!
Like being the
deep music
That tells her all is right
When she awakens frantic with
The terrors of the night.
That tells her all is right
When she awakens frantic with
The terrors of the night.
Like being the
great mountain
That rises in her heart
And shows her how she might get home
When all else falls apart.
That rises in her heart
And shows her how she might get home
When all else falls apart.
Like giving her
the love
That is her sea and air,
So diving deep or soaring high
She'll always find him there.
That is her sea and air,
So diving deep or soaring high
She'll always find him there.
Before I Was
Myself, You Made Me, Me
Before I was
myself you made me, me
With love and patience, discipline and tears,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,
With love and patience, discipline and tears,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,
Allowing me to
sail upon my sea,
Though well within the headlands of your fears.
Before I was myself you made me, me
Though well within the headlands of your fears.
Before I was myself you made me, me
With dreams enough
of what I was to be
And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,
And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,
Relinquishing your
powers gradually
To let me shape myself among my peers.
Before I was myself you made me, me,
To let me shape myself among my peers.
Before I was myself you made me, me,
And being good and
wise, you gracefully
As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears
Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.
As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears
Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.
For love inspires
learning naturally:
The mind assents to what the heart reveres.
And so it was through love you made me, me
By slowly stepping back to set me free.
The mind assents to what the heart reveres.
And so it was through love you made me, me
By slowly stepping back to set me free.
For You I Feel an
Overwhelming Love
For you I feel an
overwhelming love,
All the more because you're far away.
Though all the continents of Earth may move,
Here is my love, and here my love will stay.
Each time I feel my fortune go adrift,
Realities like rocks poised in my way,
'Ere I feel that fearful, shuddering rift,
Some memory of you holds them at bay.
All the more because you're far away.
Though all the continents of Earth may move,
Here is my love, and here my love will stay.
Each time I feel my fortune go adrift,
Realities like rocks poised in my way,
'Ere I feel that fearful, shuddering rift,
Some memory of you holds them at bay.
Dad, your love can
still my heart uplift;
After all these years, my spirits sway;
Your strength and courage still my fears remove.
After all these years, my spirits sway;
Your strength and courage still my fears remove.
