My Father in Texas

by Edward J. Rielly

I was told he went
to Texas once, my not-yet
father.  A young man still
on his father’s farm, before
he married, had children, worked
hard at a farmer’s life, grew
old before he was old, died.

That Texas trip left no documentation,
no journals, letters, not even
a reason.  I would have asked
him if I had known before
he died, but the trip surfaced
only later, in conversation with
an older cousin whose mother
was his sister, and who knew
at least the where if not the why.

Such a strange aberration in my
father’s very practical life.
My cousin had no reasons either
and, her mother dead, the answer
remains unearthed, a buried secret
in the fields that, year after year,
he plowed and planted.