The Randall Knife

My father had a Randall knife

My mother gave it to him

When he went off to WWII

To save us all from ruin

If you've ever held a Randall knife

Then you know my father well

If a better blade was ever made

It was probably forged in hell

My father was a good man

A lawyer by his trade

And only once did I ever see

Him misuse the blade

It almost cut his thumb off

When he took it for a tool

The knife was made for darker things

And you could not bend the rules

He let me take it camping once

On a Boy Scout jamboree

And I broke a half an inch off

Trying to stick it in a tree

I hid it from him for a while

But the knife and he were one

He put it in his bottom drawer

Without a hard word one

There it slept and there it stayed

For twenty some odd years

Sort of like Excalibur

Except waiting for a tear

My father died when I was forty

And I couldn't find a way to cry

Not because I didn't love him

Not because he didn't try

I'd cried for every lesser thing

Whiskey, pain and beauty

But he deserved a better tear

And I was not quite ready

So we took his ashed out to sea

And poured 'em off the stern

And threw the roses in the wake

Of everything we'd learned

When we got back to the house

They asked me what I wanted

Not the lawbooks not the watch

I need the things he's haunted

My hand burned for the Randall knife

There in the bottom drawer

And I found a tear for my father's life

And all that it stood for