Our own lives are possible because of fathers. It may be as limited as a procreational act and we never see them again. But more hopefully these are kind, caring and protective relationships that are central to our lives helping us to explore and achieve the people we want to be. From the childhood dependency of early years to sometimes troublesome teens to independence thereafter they help guide, advise, cajole and share their lives with those they most love.

Our classic poets who range in stature from William Blake to William Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Anne Bradstreet fill their verse with their own unique take on just what a father is. What he should be and what he can be. These poems give us both an insight into the role of the father in previous generations and the mirror of how some things do not change.

Beyond the nurture and the genetics one fact remains a constant, these relationships go both ways; we need them and they need us. But for many that can remain unsaid. Those words can mean much and should be often thought and sometimes said.