A Tribute To My Father
F.Douglas Lee 1912 – 2009

Within my mind
A thousand pictures of you,
None clearer than
Your figure in the barn door standing
To greet the morn with weather eye

To plot the moments of the day
Re-count the tasks
Resolve and pray
For strength and fortune’s favor
To last the course til all is done.

Within my head
A thousand sounds of you,
But none so sweet
As your cheerful whistled ditty
Or hymns you sang with tuneless ear.

Your father’s smile that warmed my soul
Proclaimed my rights
Without reserve
In language spirit heard
And birthed from dormant germ my song.

Within my life
A thousand woven threads;
Pull any one
And you live in me that moment
My thoughts, my purposes, my gifts.

Reaching back or yearning forward
There you walk casting seed
Tilling, watching,
Reaping, with quiet faith and simple
Thanks, to be your Self sufficient.

Within my dreams
A thousand lives you live,
In countless realms,
Acting out half-remembered scripts
Unfettered by earth’s rigid rules.

There I join you and together
We build pyramids,
Pilot spaceships,
Taste the wine of fame and power,
Hold hands, and dance and laugh and sing.

Ethel Lee Ingalls
May 1993