THE GENERATION GAME

It's said that we turn into our parents as we grow older.

A FATHER’S REFLECTION      
 
In my shaving mirror, increasingly,
as I grow old, my father’s face
replaces mine. As I erase
the moisture, he stares back at me.

His father’s son, he too took on
his father’s brow, his father’s jaw,
his narrow nose, cheekbones and chin.
Now I, first-born son of that son,
obey dictates of Nature’s law
as fine lines autograph my skin.
So here I stand, the mirror a lake.
He signals, from the other side,
a gentle smile, a loving wave,  
while I stand here hardly awake
with soap and razor, bleary-eyed,
forgetting that I need to shave.
That thread that links us binds us tight
yet spirals outward, upward still,
to moor my daughter as she sails
up through life’s thermals like a kite,
her bright ambitions to fulfill.
Through generations blood prevails
and we retain some small imprint
of our begetters, yet display
our own uniqueness, our own guise.
We carry then, some clue, some hint,
of them, our loved, our lost, away
into the future and reprise
their smile, the way they stood, their walk.
So something of my father stays
forever in my stance, my skin,
my eyes, my voice, the way I talk,
my dialect, my turn of phrase:
an echo sounding deep within.

The bristle on my jaw is braille.
its message clear in words, sublime:
although we are devoured by Time,
souls will survive when bodies fail.