Couldn’t let my Dad’s 100th birthday pass without a poem…

100 today

You would have been 100 today
If your heart had not failed
Almost 35 years ago. 

Larger than life you were
To me as a child
A wise mentor later. 

So many of your words
Still resonate in my skull
‘Blood’s thicker than water’. 

A favourite saying
Amongst many others 
When a point you needed to make. 

‘Going to see a man about a dog’
Another common statement,
But we already had a dog!

Born in a different time
Australia’s population only a fraction 
Of what it is today. 

And even when you passed
Still less than two thirds
Of what it stands now.

So much has changed 
Since you were born
And since you left us. 

I wonder what you would think
Of the internet and mobile phones,
Much less ‘reality tv shows’?

I guess like all who are still here
You would have absorbed what you could 
The rest ‘going through to the keeper’. 

I still miss your gentle presence 
And your blustering when upset
Wise words still whisper in my ear. 

Brian Matthews  13-12-23