Heroes

I never knew my father
But I had heard from my mother
That he was the best hero there ever was
With his smile he ended wars

He had that drive to save the world
That is why he left. Mummy and I are just a fraction
A fraction of a fraction of a big, big world
The one daddy wanted to save- His world

Her stories were like proverbs
I knew them so well I could another tell
But her night tears, those were new
She cried silently, it took away her skin’s hew

She held father’s picture
And her tears cleared the dust
Father my gallant hero
Made mummy cry and woe

I could not discern why though
Until one day under the sun through the glass window
I saw father hold and smile with his family
That’s the world he wanted to save you see
It broke my heart into fractions of fractions
“You should never meet your heroes little one”
Mummy always ended her stories
She was right always had been

And on her funeral day
Father came
He held my hand and said;
“There lies in the ground

the strongest woman I ever met
And stand I here the weakest man ever walked the Earth
For letting that WORLD slip away
Because I thought the pot of gold was a rainbow away

While it lay at the beginning
Ready to take my rainbow journey with me
Little one, she’s the real hero
The world never met a nobler one”

Father was a hero, mother’s hero
He just wasn’t mine
And as the sun set
And the riddles end
I unmasked my hero
But she was gone
“You should never meet your heroes little one”
I echoed

And I swear to you little one
The gravestone jerked a little aside
My hero had smiled.