Birth of a Son

My father died nine months before

My first son, Tom, was born:
Those nine months when my woman bore
Our child in her womb, my dad
Kept me awake until the dawn.
He did not like it dead.

Those dreams of him, his crying

�Please let me out love, let me go!�
And then again, of his dying�

I am a man who lives each breath

Until the next: not much I know
Of life or death; life-after-death:

Except to say, that when this son

Was born into my arms, his weight
Was my old man�s, a bloody ton:

A moment there � it could not stay �

I held them both. Then, worth the wait,
Content long last, my father moved away.

-Sam Hunt