Fathers and Sons

His laughter breaks, a wavering reed, a sound shaped by years, by the weight of evenings spent naming constellations no one else sees. The constancy of stars—what we imagine they promise—shadows his words, turns them tender with forgetting. The quiet of his small, meticulous rituals: folding a napkin as though it might still cradle the warmth of her hands, watering a garden he no longer walks in. Time unfurls into a ribbon, an elegy, each fold another summer stitched into memory. When he speaks of leaving, it is not as departure, but as the body laying down its heavy robes, becoming itself a hymn. He says the earth calls gently, its voice like rain. Tell me: if life is an art, isn't aging its masterwork? He wears time like grace. This poem was solely written by Christopher M. Kim. No external funding or sponsorship was involved in the creation of this work. The author declares no conflicts of interest.