So many times during our festivities
On the birthdays, or Christmases, times such as these
It grows suddenly quiet, this not-quiet crowd
For a poem, that’s usually readed out loud

It’s become a tradition, almost, if a gift
Is delayed or impeded, or just needs a lift
Or requires explanation, or sometimes just ‘cause
We’re Capells, and I guess, that’s what a Capell does
It’s become such an integral part of the plan
That it’s hard to remember where it all began

Like so many ideas, beginning as seeds
That perhaps no one wants, and perhaps no one needs
But they turn into projects, some big and some small
And so many, it’s hard to account for them all

Like a lake - who would make one, and how, and just, why?
If you thought of the effort involved, you’d just cry
But somehow from a vision of digging and dikes
It someday turns to something that everyone likes

Or a huge alteration, of walls and of floors
And of ceilings and windows and even some doors
That most people would say, what’s the point of this fuss?
But the answer, of course, is you did it for us

And with most such ideas, when first they present
We would say this is crazy, what dad did invent
And we might be excused, or perhaps we may not
For thinking that dad might have sampled some pot
But if we think again, if perhaps we forgot
That the gains that we’ve gained from such pains, is a lot

There are so very many, there’s no point to count
It would come to a stupidly large-sized amount
If you tried to write down all the things in this list
You’d give up, I suspect, or you’d wear out your wrist
There are some of them here, catalogued on these pages
Which we thought of for weeks, and for months, and for ages
But even when we thought that all things were in it
We were still ‘membring more things, right to the last minute

It is almost as if, nearly each life decision
You made, either generally, or with precision
Whether we all could see it, it was meant to be
Somehow benefitting the whole family

But I think I digress, or I don’t, I’m not sure
Are we suddenly on, like, a dad’s-whole-life-tour?
I was talking about - let me see, and re-read
Where I thought I was going when starting this screed

Oh yes! I was talking ‘bout poems for cases
Of giving with gifts or sometimes in their places
That scattered through childhood in rhyme so delighting
And usually written in dad-like handwriting

This penchant for poetry, if I recall...
Is a gift, like so many, you gave to us all.