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.