"FATHER AND SON" poem by Stanley H. Barkan, New York

Digital Collage by Lidia Chiarelli

We are both old men and soon enough

I’ll join you.

                                   - David Ignatow

As I grow older,

moving to “the best

that is to be,"

 closer to the earth

from which we both

came, Father,

I grow to understand

your understanding

of me, your son,

I, father of my own son:

Forgiving    everything,

forgetting nothing.

Oh, Father, how

you would smile

at me, a father,

 forgiving and

understanding my son

—you and me in one.

Growing into myself,

the self that was you, Father,

that am I, Son,

that is your son to be

. . . that is us.