I sit by the pond and recall that on my desk there is a Westclox Scotty pocketwatch, black numbers on a white face, set in stainless steel. It cost a dollar once, as priceless now as a memory of my father tying it to his belt loop with a black shoestring and slipping it into his vest pocket.

Until it stopped.

I know the watch would tick again. All I have to do is wind it. I would if I could wind it in reverse to a time when Dad was the young man I never knew except in the yellowed photograph on the wall above my desk.

garden pond
a dragonfly lights
on father's face