08 May 2012
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.
14 January 2012
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.
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.
06 December 2011
Coin
He saw her in the coat room
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being her teacher,
he looked on her as a father would;
with pride he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She grinned back,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
She saw him in the coat room
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being his student,
she almost didn’t go in with him there alone;
he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She awkwardly smiled,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being her teacher,
he looked on her as a father would;
with pride he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She grinned back,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
She saw him in the coat room
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being his student,
she almost didn’t go in with him there alone;
he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She awkwardly smiled,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
13 May 2011
The Senior Poem 2011
Parent to Child
Dear Child,
Out of our deepest love,
expectation.
My hatred for the word “precious”
is not because you have no value,
but because it is a word of greeting cards--cliched.
You will never know what it feels like
until a part of your soul
lies in your hands and
memorizes your face, searching for
some clue on how to grow.
Until the most beautiful thing witnessed
is a tiny person in a crib sleeping.
And while you nursed on sounds newly forming on your lips,
I saw a future better than I.
Out of our expectation,
disappointment.
Why is it we think the children will save us?
The regret is that any bad choice you will ever make
is a genetic mutation of my post-Edenic DNA.
The regret is that many plans I had for us
are still sitting in boxes yet to be opened
with receipts crumpled in my pocket.
The regret is
with me.
Out of our disappointment,
honesty—
the honesty about how I’ve tried to walk in your shoes,
to taste your music,
to talk as if age cannot steal youth from me,
but now I must face the mirror and see
the lines which read I am your parent and was not meant to be
your friend.
And I need your forgiveness for
trying to be
relevant.
Out of our honesty,
joy—
the joy that although religion is profane,
God is sacred and
that our home is a cathedral,
that I am the priest,
that every chore we shared
was a rite of worship,
each memory a stained glass piece of
a beautiful window through which we see the sky,
and that every argument was a prayer that you would be less me.
Out of our joy,
contentment
because family is an heirloom blanket, tattered and thread-bare,
a scrap of grandma, a stitch of aunt,
and if we
are careful not to let it smother us,
it will keep us warm.
Out of our contentment,
resolution
that you have become what you have become,
and I am what I am,
and there is beauty and flaw in both,
and that dirt was never anything but something to stand on
until God planted his breath down deep,
and in that resolution,
my child,
my precious child,
is hope.
Out of our resolution,
hope.
Out of our deepest love,
hope.
Dear Child,
Out of our deepest love,
expectation.
My hatred for the word “precious”
is not because you have no value,
but because it is a word of greeting cards--cliched.
You will never know what it feels like
until a part of your soul
lies in your hands and
memorizes your face, searching for
some clue on how to grow.
Until the most beautiful thing witnessed
is a tiny person in a crib sleeping.
And while you nursed on sounds newly forming on your lips,
I saw a future better than I.
Out of our expectation,
disappointment.
Why is it we think the children will save us?
The regret is that any bad choice you will ever make
is a genetic mutation of my post-Edenic DNA.
The regret is that many plans I had for us
are still sitting in boxes yet to be opened
with receipts crumpled in my pocket.
The regret is
with me.
Out of our disappointment,
honesty—
the honesty about how I’ve tried to walk in your shoes,
to taste your music,
to talk as if age cannot steal youth from me,
but now I must face the mirror and see
the lines which read I am your parent and was not meant to be
your friend.
And I need your forgiveness for
trying to be
relevant.
Out of our honesty,
joy—
the joy that although religion is profane,
God is sacred and
that our home is a cathedral,
that I am the priest,
that every chore we shared
was a rite of worship,
each memory a stained glass piece of
a beautiful window through which we see the sky,
and that every argument was a prayer that you would be less me.
Out of our joy,
contentment
because family is an heirloom blanket, tattered and thread-bare,
a scrap of grandma, a stitch of aunt,
and if we
are careful not to let it smother us,
it will keep us warm.
Out of our contentment,
resolution
that you have become what you have become,
and I am what I am,
and there is beauty and flaw in both,
and that dirt was never anything but something to stand on
until God planted his breath down deep,
and in that resolution,
my child,
my precious child,
is hope.
Out of our resolution,
hope.
Out of our deepest love,
hope.
03 April 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)