ah, father really never danced.

if i learned to dance it was from
someone else,

and father never liked it for a
dance is just a hindrance to the
work in the rice fields,

if father danced, it was because
he was drunk
pretty tired from hard work
dark brown skin caused by the
Asian sun

and we simply watched that kind
of bad taste
perhaps even detesting why
we are here
all chained by work and
struggle

perhaps i wished i had a dancing father
like yours

but you have never learned to dance too
despite the dancing father that you had

and so i cheer myself today
and say: Life is fair.

now i have grown up, and try to recall
if father loved me even for once
even if he did not dance with
us

the land and the money
the house and the rice & corn fields
the coconut farm and
the fishing boats and the beach

they dance before us
and it is enough proof that my father
who never knew how to dance

did love us too.

RIC S. BASTASA

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/there-was-no-dance-with-my-father/