Father

father |ˈfäðər|
noun
1 a man in relation to his natural child or children

Will you call him 'father'? The emaciated man, pale with dust in the glare of a yellow highway light stoops again to pick up with his tired back the weight of his generation. He bends and sweats, his calloused hands strong and sure around his struggle for freedom, for hope, for sunlight. Will you call him 'father' as you pass at ten past midnight on a Sunday, staring out at the lights of a city that you love but do not know? You will watch him grow to the size of ominous machines, dozing in the shadow of industry and development until he moves and scrapes and weeps into the hands that have no room to clutch the crumbs of his efforts or the body of his child, no time to caress the hips of his lover or a new blade of grass. The man will sweat on the highway until he crumbles into the pale dust around the freedom and hope and sunlight of his sons. Will you call him 'father'?