Myopia
Numb from the cold, Dad worked to adjust
the instrument that might give us a peek
at the God of Creation. We had borrowed it
from the library the previous afternoon.
He hunched over the squat wooden tripod
petitioning mysterious levers and knobs,
struggling to bring something into focus.
We stared into the everlasting darkness
of space and asked him what he saw.
“Nothing yet,” he breathed heavily,
while above us the cosmos glittered.
Matthew Schultz teaches Irish Studies and Creative Writing at Vassar College where he also directs the Writing Center. His son, Arthur, painted this image with watercolor and sand on construction paper when he was four years old. He is now six and an avid skateboarder.