I gave my son a prism,
That he might learn reflection.
I lent him, too,
A view of monks
Who craft sand mandalas,
And scatter them when finished.

Today, unbent, the boy fussed
To glean some secret
From studied sun and sand.
When I spoke,
He mirrored me
And named two tasks
That still beguiled him:
To stuff light back into the prism,
And then retrieve
Bright grains of sand
From riverbeds
Where holy men had scattered them.

Paul O. Jenkins lives in New Hampshire but mostly in the past. His poems and stories have appeared in American, European, and Asian journals. These poems touch on childhood, fatherhood, and longing for home.