Phrenology

"Hey daddy, do you have a picture of just you in a frame?
Do you want one? So I can remember you when you die."

The memory of you, silhouette against the lake, pensive and staring out
into reflections and ripples, casting a net of thought,
almost indistinguishable from the pillars of the dock
is more a likeness of you than any mantle mounted memory.

A man just beyond touch but within whisper, still and quiet, antique.
A monument to time.
The time of your father.
The time of your war stories that thrilled my childhood.
The time of conduct and courage herculean like some Greek myth of accomplishment and stature I have tried to reach
but even now as a father matching an age I remember you
I am childish and small,
contemplating the plebeian reflection I see in the mirror with the risible smile my daughter now speaks of framing to remember me.

The last time I saw you, you were standing,
arms linked in natural parade rest,
looking over the tomb of Tomochichi.
A rock, solid and unmovable as a man half idea and half vision,
dark skinned and taciturn, large and formidable, granite, stone, timeless.
Your face, chiseled angular, native in its own right, darkened by sun and experience, now more defined and skull like than in my childhood,
mortality poking through the skin of your bald irradiated head.

When you started to lose your hair, you asked me to shave it in the garage.
You, who had always had black hair, full hair, youthful vibrance that refused to age and wilt away, being shaved down to the skin, made flesh, in a folding chair.
And you told me of shaving your father in the hospital bed and keeping the razor, but the story ended there,
and I have no idea where you put the razor or how you felt.

Much of everything we shared is such.
I have outlines, a shape, a silhouette, bones.
And I am left to fill in the forms and details myself
with my own thoughts and feelings.
A color and shade not yours.
But I suppose we both assumed close enough to make an image.