The Shadow Waters

On Tolstoy (During the Composition of Anna Karenina)

Mysterious father, who sits in his lair,

you with your books towering like
fortress walls beside you, and like old stone
the must of your books and warm tallow
drifts from beneath your door.

We know your pen is powerful,
we see how it silences
us when you are with it,
we see our silent mother each day

at the dining table, reading sheets
you have written with that pen,
copying your words meticulously
as if they were prayers,

and at dinner when you emerge
(older and wiser from living
in that other world),
we wish we knew what you saw

when you looked at us.
Your beard is gray, as is your smock,
your bones taut beneath lagging flesh,
and that is how much we know of you.

We only ask (you being
our father) that one day
we will read from the pages
of your heart.

posted by the shadow waters @ 8:00 PM