Badlands

My father is a fossil. Around him
Dawns flare. Dusks bleed.
The time between is Greek.

Oligocene: not much is new.

An inland sea shaved the buttes.
Today’s faces all wear the same whiskers
Making everything – so nothing – familiar.

In a family photo taken when I was eight
He is bearded, wearing black-frame glasses
And a Hawaiian shirt. I’m sitting on his knee.

The gray peaks could be waves. No wonder
I’m lost. I may as well be traveling
The ocean between a man and his father.

© R. Jeffrey Roberts