I recall the man. Sweet, always smiling as in that oak-framed photo above the fire, with that solid stance of a marbled statue and the elevated dignity to match. Now, far beyond his prime, he sits. Still. A frail prisoner to the television, the only sweetness left in the last amber drops at end of the glass – the beginning of the next? – a man delirious from drink and all the rust of long life. Still. Waiting for the sleep.
 
How the passions go slack, subtly, with passing days.