When I was much younger

                        I would watch my father 

                        Stand, with the back of

                        His hands resting on his 

                        Hips, staring at the horizon,

                        Or as I like to call it,

                        "That vacant spot."                  

                        What was he thinking of(if 

                        Anything) at times such as 

                        These? Was he, in this trance- 

                        Like-state, admiring the

                        Distant-beauty of Nature,

                        Or was he recalling the 

                        Distant-beauty of his youth? 

                        A long-ago Love, perhaps?

                        The camaraderie, the fellowship

                        And the sheer-joy he must 

                        Have felt while working 

                        In the Western grain-fields

                        During the 1920s? Or was 

                        He thinking of babies? 

                        Babies being conceived?

                        Babies being born? Babies! 

                        Babies living? Babies dying--

                        (God, why can't a man have 

                        It all?) Babies growing,

                        Growing --? My father died 

                        Before I knew him! I was 

                        Twenty-one, he was sixty-four.

                        Or did he? Sometimes, I catch 

                        Myself, standing with the 

                        Back of my hands resting 

                        On my hips, staring --I

                        Wonder at these times, what 

                        My watching-children are thinking.

GLEN E. SMITH  AKA   Ed -