Hemingway

I remember as a boy
How my father would talk with reverence about Hemingway,
And “The Old Man And The Sea.”

I brushed it aside with all the other mumbo-jumbo he had told me.
But although I could scarcely recall it,
I was always curious at his fascination and passion.
The Old Man was stupid, and he had gone out too far;
Anyone could see that.

Tonight, as I watched television in my habitually sleepless night,
I found Spencer Tracy, and till 4am I watched “The Old Man and the Sea”
With the curiosity I had carried with me all those years.

“I too have gone out too far,”I thought…
And I waited for “Half fish, fish that you were…”
Because I remembered it,
Although it never made much sense to me.

But it made sense now, 
And I cried when the boy saw the Old Man’s hands,
Torn and bleeding from the pursuit of his dreams.
And I knew what the boy knew.

It was the something my father tried to tell me,
20 years ago.