Perhaps you wouldn’t

believe the sight,

but your eyes have

blurred with age:

the daughter leading

her father,

their duet rumbling

through the stage.

​

And then the music

sweeps you to

forgotten years,

as you peer

through milky tears

at his transformed veneer–

not the budding son

you nurtured

before his bloom decayed–

but someone new,

residing in the

melody they play.

​

High notes

dissipate the air

like shattered glass,

his quick staccato

never falters,

as he rectifies the past.

And perhaps for

the first time you see

beyond his skin,

amid the tumors

riddling his body,

lurks the glimmer

of what he’d been:

a young boy

–your true son–

fingers fumbling off-rhythm.

​

And in that moment

you hear the child interwoven

with the man,

converging to a father

tumbling through El Capitan:

​

lucid, lively, strong–

still wishing to please you

with his song.