Reflection

Peaceful
No longer striving,
No signs of strain…

The kind of face
A boy would choose
For when he became a man

I thought of the portrait
Of my uncle
Dead before I knew him

And somehow
I grew up
To become him

My mother told me
Before he died
He held me and wept

I often wondered
What secrets he kept

Did he see
I’d be
Just like him?

This man in the portrait
Staring into
A dark future…

What did he see
That made him weep?

Did he see
The little I’d become

A failed man,
A disappointment?

Or did he think
I was the hope
Of life to be

Small child
In his arms…

Not yet talking
But encumbered with mystery?