Thank ye immensely devoted sister Shari
   for availing Shana Aubrey
an expansive plethora of blessedly
   extravagant opportunities
wherein her anatomical fist-sized noggin i.e. grey
matter sponging up - less doable from me
the biological father, who validates
   your doting, helping, kickstarting,
   et cetera I clamor to see!
--------------------------------------------

Matthew Scott Harris Born January 13th, 1959

I shake my shaggy hirsute hair
in utter disbelief, when the cocked arrow
begat thine conception,
when meal ate mum and octogenarian papa

expected their second offspring and only son,
what now seems to be a stepped-up pace,
where father time
doth affix another candle to blow
where the passage of life now measured

in swiftly tailored decades
denoting another birthday,
when in the blink of an eye,
I vividly recall crow
wing like a Lil whippersnapper of a boy
leisurely playing monopoly
for make-believe dough...
--------------------------------------------
nothing ranks as the greatest gift
since being a father twenty-one years ago
then bearing witness to grow
increasing autonomy

of my two precious daughters
whereby each will become master
of their domain, and meet a loving beau
(actually thy eldest dates
a delightful young man
from Puerto Re Coe),

whom intuition discerns would be
a near perfect match –
and this papa intuits dough
nuts to dollars – that such an
em man hint gentle, humble,

intelligent lad – doth ***
pa fully become the future groom
of said firstborn, (which outcome I know
wing couched in a couple of poems

sent his way, and no doubt his smarts lo'
and behold revealed the slightly obscure wish),
where love doth most obviously abound mo'
then prevailed between myself and bride o'

mine these last deuce score
plus (21+) years, but now this Poe
whit aspires to recognize the worthiness of she,
whose chose thyself as a lifetime
groom cuz peaceful status quo

avoiding animosity –
as thyself and spouse gently row
merrily...merrily...merrily
our once quite rickety craft
which oft times in the past needed a tow
off the craggy shoals of constant woe.