Deaux az aye Ce', knot az aye deaux!

Advice From Vana's Father

or

The Firefly Lantern

Men, both far and wide, do hear

my laments of cumbered fatherhood!

Stay true to the one you swore to love,

cherish and treat her both fair and good.

For easy is it to stray asunder

and find plenty to abet your wickedness.

But when discovered in your deception

expect no quarter or kindness.

Either by another's or your own tongue

to the light shall come all that is wrought.

Though we are all unwitting sinners,

fear that which your own actions have brought.

For King Solomon has but to ask,

"Do I need to split in two,

these children set here before me?"

for me to yield to the likes of "you".

Against my own better judgement,

I step aside and clear the road

for you to travel your own way;

no matter what it makes my own lode.

For the love I graciously share with you

for the two whom you brought forth

permeates the entirety of my being

greater even than my own known worth.

And all the days I walk alone,

watching you three from afar,

are nobody's doing but my own;

like firefly, trapped in it's own jar.

And with each year that passes by

and each candle added to the fold

does little to lessen the stinging pain

that which my heart does surely hold.

But upright and steady I shall trod,

down my own chosen, rued route,

carrying the burden of promises made

broken and tossed aside by unfaithful lout.

And though all the days I swore to make

amends for the betrayal I have done,

even if dutifully labored upon

do not earn back my daughter and son.

So, like that firefly in that said jar;

brother, use me as your beacon now

to light the way you should walk

and make a better life than mine somehow.

For the agony of a father estranged

separated from his own fleshly brood

torments the soul like nothing else

that I have endured in my life, dude!