“No, not yet!”  I said

wishing to hear not him

but him

thinking that to follow dinosaur trails

now

was not hardly the thing

“Daddy, could you go down

and get me one sheet

of plain blank paper?”

optimistically asked

of a father by love committed

as Julia and Emily happily gaggle

“No!’ again

but inspired

open a dinosaur book

to an empty last page

where a son ecstatic

went busily to work.

Silence

some minutes later

inquiring of the art

was told it represented

“You and me,

going fossil hunting.”

outdone, I wept