[Flycatcher]

I don't even like Roethke in the original.

Say it ain't so!

I really think Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" is one of the most beautiful works of literature of the 20th century. It's a very simple poem, composed in common, simple language with simple rhymes and simple meters, yet it addresses the complicated ambivalence of a son's love for his (possibly brutal) father. Judging by your handle, you're a woman, and might not fully understand the father/son theme, but it's a popular theme among great poets.

For a different take, try e. e. cummings' "My Father Moved Through Dooms of Love." It's another masterpiece (and it was cummings' personal favorite as well).

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, we'll just have to disagree, I suppose. I don't like many of the 20th c poets (or composers). Kipling is technically 20th c, but he was looking firmly backwards.

I'm more at home with the Elizabethans and the Scottish poets of the same period (especially Dunbar and Douglas), so you can see that I'm inhabiting another world.

I went and hunted out the cummings, and I must say it's the best thing of his I've ever read.

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

I think I shall copy it out for my father in my best calligraphy.

The meter and the rhyme fit the poem - square and sturdy and right - while Roethke's rhyme and meter struggle against his theme. It should shamble - or waltz - not march.