To Sherwood Anderson, In Heaven (Stanza 2 only)

I disturb my father; he does not understand
who or what I am: a happy lunatic, a poet,
a bear-like man with a beard, a cloud-watcher,
a shameless sensualist: eating, drinking, talking,
reading, laughing, cursing, weeping, smoking -- all
too much; a lover of flowers and small children,
an eye for the women, a stylist, a tragic clown,
incurable romancer from my earliest days.
My father -- austere, silent, ascetic: almost
a Roman -- must wonder where I came from:
surely not, he thinks, from these lean loins.

Eckman, Frederick . "To Sherwood Anderson, In Heaven."