In a reverie of joyous thoughts
I take myself to other worlds
Where tinkling streams of crystal flow
And summer breezes gently blow

Where beds of darkness love to  bloom
Beneath the cusp of a crescent moon
And stars that shine their light bright
Silver the paling ends of night

And when at dawn, the sun rises
To write poetry with rays of quill
The hills come alive with the scented  ink
Of  sunflowers and daffodils

Here clouds at dusk touch the earth
And drizzle rain on yearning trees
Nature's rhapsodic songs
Sing in unchained melodies

In this world of happy thoughts
Such sweet and joyous visions see
I linger there, longer to dream
In the solitude of a reverie

On the living room couch,
I asked my phone a verbal question:
"What is an albatross?"

And before it could answer,
my father began his reply
from the kitchen counter--

To be cut short by my phone who had finished thinking,
the screen flashing a series of definitions for "albatross"
and reading them aloud to me.

My father stopped, and looked at me forlornly.

I daren't look back--
And the sound of a heart breaking,
whether mine or his,
and the silence it engulfed,
was hidden under the blanket of the contraption's monotone voice.

A little more humanity was lost today,
and my father yet again was faced with the reality that
even if he had all the answers,
as he had in my inquisitive childhood--

No one was left to ask him the questions.