PATIENCE

Looking back, I had a sometimes vexed relationship with my father as sons often do, I suppose. 
He was, in many ways, an introverted man, largely because of his hearing loss, and one of the strongest images that I have of him, from my childhood, is of a stern figure bent over the family Bible, silent and pensive, completely oblivious of his surroundings.  

THE FISHERMAN

My father, 
grey as a heron, thin
as a wafer, 
the Good Book spread before him 
like a silver pool
would sit for hours
unmoving, silently still,
his bald head bowed, 
one finger poised
as though to spear a mystery.

Oh my dear father,
what beguiled you there? 
What held you 
rapt
while, slowly, slowly, 
ticked the clock?

What strange fish lay, 
unmoving, deep
within those well-thumbed pages?