by Steve Gaines

captured in the bronze of time
my father’s memory shines
hangs prominently on the granite wall
of my own mortality.

I am what there is left of him
carrying that enigmatic genetic memory of his shapes
stamped with his name and wearing the clothes
he left behind

a legacy of his dreams
I use the tools he coveted and despair
of knowing his secrets and ease of
their uses

ah well
I am not, in the final analysis, him
he was much that I am not and I am much that he was not
the exception being our common brown eyes and
perpetually youthful face

I am something ethereal and waiting
cast on the winds of creation… a looker for words
he was a doer of things in the first tradition
proud of doing them because he could
undaunted by the mysteries of science
not in it’s power
I am awed by the unknowable
and at a loss to comprehend it
which is as it should be
since I do not require its uses

he was a rock to which I turned often
needing his advice as he needed to proffer it
a necessary combination of supply and demand