My heart is most pleased and blessed by family and family relationship poems, for they are closest to my heart. Some of these offerings are funny, moving, nostalgic, or religious. Others are more complex, refusing (as families themselves do) to fit neatly under any one characterization. My poems value the complexity of every family relationship and respect those who honor and uphold it. I hope you find something that resonates with you here. May the poems evoke feelings (delightful and occasionally less so) that we all associate with being part of a family.
FINDING THE POEM YOU WANT: As you scroll through this section, simply read each snippet sample (usually the first four lines) to get a feel for the poem. When you find something you like, click “CONTINUE READING” to view the entire poem.
(My work may be used free for non-commercial purposes only. Please request permission by email and include full copyright information, legibly printed, on every copy made. For internet use, a link back to the poem on this website is required.)
If ever in my final, fading years
the essence of me drifts too far away…
if I am lost as reason disappears,
hold me in memory until the day
when body stills at last and spirit flies
to make a home in brighter, bluer skies.
I am from gentle ties that bind; from farmland and baked bread and small, sturdy hands, from goodness and grittiness, grounded in virtue and faith.
The world shows many faces;
every life holds sundry charms,
but universal is our yearning
for a mother’s arms.
A dad is an anchor when things go quite wrong
and a fan club when things go quite right.
He’s there to protect you when you’re super scared
of those things that go “bump” in the night.
My favorite teacher told me in my youth:
“You’ll always be a leader; that’s your truth.”
This left me feeling special, even proud.
I’d often thought the same, though not out loud.
“Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.”
This I muttered to myself,
pulling pamphlets off the shelf.
Follow the bright lights home, my son.
When all is said, when all is done,
their glow still brings you back to me
in person and in memory.
