men don't cry

    our backs almost touch

    the (recovery) house wall i sit

    in a chair and my father

    in a (wheel) chair we look

    at the tree across the street

    they don't grow that tall and strong

    in Poland he says (in Polish of course)

    but U did i think (without words of course)

    and i say in California

    they're still taller and

    i wait for lightning to strike the tree

    in this fine weather in this fine weather

    a van has shattered

    my father's leg and broke his neck

    when he was crossing Plymouth Road



    he had almost recovered then after a fall

    he broke his neck again a lightning

    in California struck a five thousand year old tree

    and there was tree no more

    he is only eighty six

    we sit in the shadow

    the creamy protective collar around his neck

    somehow reflects light







                          Wlodzimierz Holsztynski ©

                                  1998-06-25