A Father's Day Poem by the Editor

Where Are Their Soldiers Now?

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

Here I sit in merry Mead

Looking at Greek art.

Many vases

Many faces

Confront me from each part

Of the room in which I read.

Centaurs that do battle men,

Wing’ed monsters represented

All in etchings

And in sketchings--

Those Greeks should be complimented.

Hail them once, twice, and again!

And yet, among what is unveiled

No scene, not even one,

Of all the stories

And the glories

Shows a father with his son;

Perhaps none was detailed.

Those silly Greeks,

They were undone.

They missed the father

And the son,

Caring only about battles won.

Where are their soldiers now?

Poet’s Notes:  I composed this poem circa 1987 at the Mead Art Gallery at Amherst College where I worked as an attendant while a student there.  The job mainly consisted of earning $5.00 per hour to do your homework (or compose poetry) at a desk near the gallery entrance--a highly coveted work-study job that I was fortunate to have obtained.

My son is now about the age that I was then.  I am not sure if my own father, may his memory be a blessing, ever read the poem--if he did, I do not recall that he ever mentioned it.