SEEING

                              for Patrick

In the trip we took to D.C. that summer,
I walked four or five steps behind you
and my two grandsons. Like a duckling 
trailing his mama, I struggled to keep up,

especially when the sidewalk sloped,
but I managed to stay close behind.
Oblivious to the history engulfing us, 
I mostly looked down or straight ahead,

watching the quick, sure-footedness
of your steps and the legs carrying you,
thinking how they resembled mine,               
though surer, stronger, and not wearied

by the decades I had lived before you.
When we sat face to face and talked,
I gazed blankly into your eyes, seeing
the boy and man in you___a mirror 

of the father I had and hadn’t been,
like the quiet, earthy, gleaming eyes
of your mother, reflecting dark truths
of me that were unseen and unknown.

John Warner Smith was the Poet Laureate of Louisiana from 2019 to 2021 and is the only African American male to serve in the office in its 84-year history. Smith has published five collections of poetry, most recently Our Shut Eyes, published by MadHat Press in 2021. His sixth collection, From the Flinty Rock: New & Selected Poems, is forthcoming from Legacy Book Press in 2027.