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

Digital Collage by Lidia Chiarelli

 FATHER AND SON

 

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.

 

 

—Stanley H. Barkan