Robert Sward

Robert Sward (sward@cruzio.com) is living and working in California.

He's author of _A Much Married Man)_.

FATHER

The voice has changed.

It is my father, hesitant,

rhetorical.

He is weeping,

confides in me.

What is he to do, he says.

He asks this earnestly, wanting

to reconcile Dale Carnegie, mysticism, psychoanalysis and the Great Society.

He is a Republican, a member of the Elks,

a Rosicrucian

and a Jew.

Once more I will fail him.

I speak in riddles;

he listens.

All that I have done

is a moving through doubt.

I know nothing, I say, nothing.

This happens, then this...

One can name them.

One day, then the next day.

This man approaching, approaching in ignorance... he will speak, and name a woman, an event, a moment.

* * *

I see

only things,

man

on a rooftop

World

one way, then another,

then another.

Sun slanting through clouds,

circling

the sky circling

left to right

Opening

arches

opening, the sun

white rain

falling

The light

drifting

through trees.

Robert Sward