I was listening to Richard Blanco’s Inaugural Poem today, and was struck by the following line:

“hands as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.”

So much of your childhood I spent working
and missing you;
in classes I taught, phones I answered, files I sorted, keys labelled and given, customers I greeted and smiled to again and again and again.
Wondering, all the while, what story you might be telling if I was there.

But I had to work.
I had to work to buy you the things you would need,
Things like books and shoes.

Books to take you to whole new worlds,
and shoes to take you across this one;
books to feed you on dreams,
and shoes to walk towards them.

I have been a father,
and I have given you books and shoes and love.
Books and shoes to take you far from me,
and love to keep you always near.