Poem: Family Recipe

Family Recipe

I know ingredients
and most of the method:
the problem is the proper order,
and the exact proportions, too, I suppose.
If he were about, he would know it all.
It was his mother's recipe, 
and he would know.  Maybe
your father would know too,
but I am not certain he would have learned it.
I do not know if your father was the type
who learned those things
from his mother.  I knew
my father.  I know
he was that kind of son,
but your father 
is not a person I know so well.
I do not want to ask him:
I am afraid I will learn
he cannot offer me
what I am wanting now.

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