The Quiet One

Because my father was the quiet one,

A stranger might have thought he didn't care

Or even argued that he wasn't there

For what he might have said or should have done.

But I don't feel that way at all, because,

Though he, in fact, was often out of town

And scratchy when he put his suitcase down,

Those linty pockets where the candy was

Showed he was thinking of us far away,

So even if he really wasn't there,

Or listened without anything to say,

When I look up I see him everywhere,

As the stilled, assenting heart of priest or nun

Knows Him because He is the quiet One.

Anthony Lombardy

© 1999; originally printed in The Formalist.  Reprinted
by permission of the author.