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).
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.
