My father's centenary

It's thirty years since I wrote him a poem,
when Daddy reached three-score-years-and-ten.
Today's the centenary of that gentlest of men.

So today I really feel that I owe him
another verse - now I am only five years shy
of the age he was at my previous try.

At photos from childhood to old age I look,
most of them taken before I was born.
He's been gone thirteen years, and still I mourn!

But what can I say, short of writing a book?
As under the bridge flows a lifetime of water,
I am proud of being my father's daughter.

© Celia Warren 2018

As I put together this collage of photos of my father I decided to surround him by today's songbirds that he so enjoyed watching in the garden. He would have loved seeing them today, on his birthday, as they never left the garden, including the little blackcap who was back and stayed all day. My father died shortly after his 87th birthday but today would have been his 100th.

Among the photos are those that had oft-repeated accompanying words - one where he is aged about three, and is feeling for his string of beads, another where, in RAF uniform, he has given his hand in marriage to my mother (that's why you can't see his right hand!) ... and so the memories live on long after our older family have gone.

Happy Birthday, RAB!