We lift our baby boys
High above our heads
When they are born
Like ancestral offerings.
It’s on us to show our sons
This holy view from on high,
The one they won't remember
Until looking down on us in bed
Days before we die.
I took my own dad’s absences
And surreptitiously hid them
In the hollows of my bones.
Bones hold their hardness
But rarely empty until
Long after we’re dead.
My boy’s bones are flush
With a seething fleshy marrow
That I’d never ask him to share.
I’m still here.
I’ve flung myself into rivers
From great arching heights,
Emptying my lungs
With long expiring howls
On the way down.
It’s my bones that
Helped me stay afloat.
I’ve tried to chart a path
But he always finds his own way,
Anxious splashing across the Chagrin
Soaking his socks and shoes
After I’d meticulously
Hopscotched across,
Stone after stone,
In order to stay dry.
But he’s the one having all the fun.
How can I be the dad
When I still feel like a son?
What view will I recall
When my old man is gone?
Maybe I’ll just pour the rest
Of what I have left into my boy,
See how it goes.
Maybe that’s how it goes,
Fullness passing into emptiness,
Voids giving rise to the robust,
Alternating, generation after generation.
One, light as air
Straining to lift
Away into the sky
Like helium balloons
But tethered by sons
Who become dads
Firmly anchored
In the ground.
6/20/21
1 comment:
Happy Fathers Day Sweetheart. Your kids are blessed beyond their knowledge. Enjoy your day
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