My son walks alone on a vast plaza of marble and stone

My boy is a slight man among mighty pillars

He walks over solid marble and I see him aging

Sometime soon he’ll be as old as the father I once loved and it warms my heart as much as breaks it

I watch from afar, on the set of a neoclassical painting

Pillars of permanence drawn from antiquity

Like David’s Brutus, I lament the tragedy

The emotional toll of sacrifice

I remind myself: I didn’t kill him

I’ve set him free—for the greater good

References: 1) https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/monarchy-enlightenment/neo-classicism/v/david-the-lictors-returning-to-brutus-the-bodies-of-his-sons-1789

2)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lictors_Bring_to_Brutus_the_Bodies_of_His_Sons

© Richie Smith