Sepia

Sepia

by Dana Lee Stone

                                                             Sepia tones

capture his image

on the aerodrome in France

                                                  where he trained.

He smiles,

left hand placed

jauntily

on his hip.

Confident,

maybe a little cocky.

He was 19 that day.

Dropped out of U. Va.

to enlist in World War One.

This was the man who loved me fiercely.

The son

of a printer,

and a Southern belle.

Product of the Gilded Age

Before all hell

broke out

with the “war to end all wars.”

                             Smiling directly at the camera,

                                     eyes gleaming like the shiny steel

       of his Curtiss Jenny.

Dashing,

Handsome.

          This was my father,

veteran of the First World War.

           (and the Second).

     I want to know more

about him,

     but there are  so few letters.

All I have are

memories

of his stories

of France

 and the faraway places

in fairy tales he used to

  read to me before

   I went to sleep.