Two Sons

I saw you
a long way off

and mistook your coming
for return.

So I ran.

Of course I ran.

The old foolish father
still watching the road,
still believing
footsteps meant home.

Bring the robe.

Bring the ring.

Kill the calf.

The dead is alive.
The lost is found.

I saw you
a long way off

and mistook your coming
for return.

Except

you had not come home.

You had come
for the inheritance.

Again.

And I,
so grateful
for the shape of you
in the doorway,

did not notice
your empty hands.

No apology.

No name
for the woman
standing beside me.

No question
about the years.

Only the hand
held out.

And still
I filled it.

I saw you
a long way off

and mistook your coming
for return.

There was no feast.

Only the strange silence
after giving,

the road again,

your back
growing smaller.

This time
I did not follow.

No father
at the gate.

No lamp
left burning.

No watching
the horizon
for the familiar shape.

I have spent enough
of my life
mistaking hunger
for love.

Go, then.

Take what you came for.

The road
is yours.

I am going inside.

I saw you
a long way off.

Now I know
you were only
passing through.

And this time

I will close the door.

But perhaps
I have been reading
the wrong story.

Not the son
coming home.

Another son.

Another father.

Absalom.

And now
I know his name.

The son who wounded
the father

and was loved
even then.

The son who was gone

and the father
who wept.

My son.

My son.

The door is closed.

It will remain closed.

Still,

I weep for you.