Ensnared inside that private pain
where things forgotten still remain
there loomed a tragic life long laid to rest.
A young boy's need for father's love
put blind self-centeredness above
all hope the boy might ever gain
the truth concealed within his father's breast.
The father battled demons massed
through fears and failures from a past
controlled by darkened forces without shape.
The child would fail to understand
the absence of his father's hand,
a loss that never would outlast
the method his father's sad escape.
Through troubled times they grew apart
till demons killed the father's heart
and crushed all chance they'd ever reconcile.
The son became a man himself
and fixed his guilt on hidden shelf,
resigned that he should never start
the pilgrimage to end lifelong denial.
This aching emptiness he knew
and deep within the burden grew
till neither son nor father could find peace.
His life fell into disarray,
relentless thoughts from yesterday
demanding than he must pursue
late reconciliation's lean release.
The moment came when opened wide
were eyes and heart so long denied
this haunting need to be his father's child.
Forgiveness flowed through salty tears
and tended wounds ignored for years.
Beside a grave a son has cried,
while in his mind a loving father smiled.