For Jimmy

It becomes too heavy for one person 

on the back on the arm

across the shoulders

Sometimes not as heavy 

as awkward

but sometimes 

Well sometimes heavy too

until it cuts into the chest to bleed

begging to be unpacked

The contents secret

and in the water it does not 

float but drags like stone.

Cover me at the bottom.

Put sand over my mouth.

Sing until I do not speak. 

Until I cannot hear.

Senior Poem 2012: Song

There is a joyfully solemn, seductive harmony of stars which fell on our worshipping lips at creation like tongues of dew.  The song is the eternal legacy of mortals.  Only parents can sing.  Only children can hear. This is the words made song.


Drawn to  the wooden toy  box past her own validation, she cannot
tell  herself any longer that someday is distant.
Delivered in mystery, varnished with history, each toy of her daughter is a
remembering.

_______
Fathers often, especially before the race of dawn, regret they have spent
much less time on fathering, and many more hours at the office  than
required.  At night the scratch at  their chests is more for what was undone than for what was
done.

_______
Daring to remember is like a lullaby, simple in melody, complex in joy,
mimicked by youth from ancients.
Moving from father, daughter, mother, son. Sometimes like a dove to the ark
returning.

_______
Reborn when it is late at night—so
much late that  it is early—the blue soft
down moon glow blankets the beds where hoping children
dream.

_______
Dreams are the verses, mercy the refrain; grace is the metrical
time. Love is found in gifting the song, when we be and stop
doing, with the aged roughed hands of
release.




_______
Fathers, remember the song of tenderness.
Mothers, sing the song of letting go.
Remember, sons, the song of courage.
Daughters, the song of beauty.




There is a song that cradles us at morning, nurtures us at noon, points us to rest in the evening.  There is a tune that stirs us when we falter, quiets us when we worry, welcomes us when we need home.  

To Emily about Regret

Previously Published in dotdotdash


If Hope is a feathered thing,
Regret is simply

a tardy ice
spread over jonquils
who too early broke their silence
just to hope for spring.