Father and Son Untouching Orbits
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
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I knew my father only in two parts
Of life (his life), his summer and his fall.
His spring was long before me. Both our hearts
Had holes inside them, some quite wide, some small.
These hearts held missing messages too much
Like palimpsests in coded pages. So
I never grasped his truth — as if its touch
Was always elsewhere. Two, we couldn’t grow
Together, separate meanings intertwined.
I did not know him in his wintertime.
Our isolated souls were nonaligned.
We lived in places where we heard no rhyme.
For decades we both held obsessions far
As sunlight from another, nearest star.
~ Phillip Whidden