The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Síða 61

SPRING/SUMMER 1995
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
171
This life it has meted him miserly fare.
His messy beard is now graying.
I don’t think he eyes that Eden yet
which optimists like portraying.
For he never will look at a printed page;
it won’t pay as his debts keep soaring.
And yet there is something that seems to cry
from his silver-gray eyes — imploring.
In each person’s life, be it lowly and mean,
some light shines, if just for an hour.
Thus came to my father this blond little boy,
a bow-legged, toddling “flower.”
That tot of a boy was a child of mine;
the two were soon inseparable,
and the poor old man wouldn’t see the sun
when my son started to babble.
For a year and a half did this happiness last;
it was heaven on earth to him, nearly.
He eased his hard grip on the implements,
treating everything less severely.
But showers will frequently follow a shine.
One fair recent day it all ended:
a parting of friends at a fork in the road —
It felt as if dark had descended.
Then papa broke down, and he cried like a kid
as he clutched the boy in a hurry;
it seemed as if each of his tumbling tears
contained a whole lifetime of worry.
And his face, all bedraggled and dirty, brushed
‘gainst his darling from whom he would sever.
He was fated to waive what he valued most
but why — none will fathom ever.
English translation
© 1995 by Hallberg Hallmundsson