I fondly recall the days of my youth,
a young lad sharing in his father’s smile.
Tho’ I may never fill my father’s boots,
I will always be my father’s child.

Living within my father’s shadow,
and sensing the stature of a great man.
The very ground he walks on is hallow,
so he taught me to live off the land.

Pitching tents by the rocky shores,
bagging bass from the widest of lakes.
Hunting for deer near the forest’s core,
with bow and arrow as day breaks. 

Fun and camping on the weekends,
riding horses through winding dirt paths.
Sunday pot luck with family and friends,
side by side, sitting with my dad.

Each night, just before I’d go to bed,
my dad tucks me in our homemade nest.
Gently kissing me above my forehead,
reading bedtime stories as I rest.

Once we climbed the top of Pike’s Peak
and I looked down at the world below.
I reasoned that all my father had shown me
expressed a love he had never known.