Parent

February 15, 2023

GO TO YOUR ROOM

When a petulant child
acts out badly, a parent
will send the child
to a corner, to his room,
for a “time out”
the duration of which
depends on the child’s
offense and demeanor.

What are we to do
when the child has
no parents, answers
to no one, even his adult
children, where can we,
the observers go, what
can we do except cringe
in horror knowing this
child had the keys
to unleash a nuclear
holocaust, other than pray
that his until now silent
playmates awaken and
put him in a playpen until,
if ever, he grows up.

April 2, 2022

HAUNTING

The ghosts of my birth parents
blow into my dreams as
so many white sheets torn
from the clothesline
by gale winds, fly over me,
at once angels and vultures
carrying off memories
created from the clay
of surmise and wishful thinking.

I invite their visits, frail
branches to which to cling
in the storms of growing age,
beginnings tenuous anchors
to hold against time, knowing
the battle cannot be won,
but take joy in skirmishes
not to be diminished
by an ultimate failure I
have long come to accept.

June 2, 2021

BEFORE YOU LEAP

She always told him
that he should, no must,
“look before you leap.”

He said he understood
and would do so, almost
always, he was after all
a child and no promise
could be that absolute.

When he came out
of the anesthesia,
his arm and leg
in a cast, he saw her
scowling at him.

“I did,” he said, “I did,
I looked for quite a while
before I jumped 
off the garage roof,
just like you told 
me I had to do.”

February 23, 2021

FINDING PEACE

It wasn’t lost on me, mother, that this year
on the anniversary of death, you had been gone
eighteen years, Chai in your beloved Hebrew,
a lifetime for me, having never met you
save in the half of my genes you implanted
in me when I was implanted in you.

As you aged, alone, did you wonder what
became of the closest family you had after
your parents were interred in the soil of Charleston?
Did you ever regret not knowing, or were you
comfortable that the Jewish Family Service Agency
would make a selection of which you would
have approved had your approval been sought.

You have grandsons and greatgrandchildren
who will mourn me, carry my memory forward,
but know that I do the same for you, and you
never aged a day from that one when the photographer
took your college yearbook photo, a grainy
copy of which is tucked in my wallet and heart.

December 18, 2020

LESSONS

The most important lessons he taught
were in those moments when he was
absolutely silent, the smile across
his face shouting across the background
din of everyday life, his eyes wide
with a sort of childish awe that I had
long since given up as adolescent.

The child sees everything for the first time
regardless how many times she has
gazed at what we adults are certain
is the same scene, a pure iteration,
hears each call of the cardinal as
a never-before-heard song, not
the now boring chorus of a too long
repeated lyric, its melody now painful.

His lessons too easily slipped away,
as he did a few years later, mourning
a poor substitute for memories that
eased into the damp ground with him,
but the smile of my granddaughter
at seemingly everything and nothing,
her laughter at the squirrel inverted
from the crook arm of the bird feeder
defying the shield below to stop
his constant thefts, the giggles
at the clouds filling the sky with
characters I could not hope to see,
brought him back, and with him
the joys of my childhood long suppressed.

November 25, 2020

GRANDCHILD

You more easily remember
the birth of a grandchild
than his or her parent

whether from a memory
sharpened by age
or regular sleep

or by a vision
more acute for knowing
what to look for,

or simply a clinging
tightly to any symbol
of youth denied you.

It may be as well
that grandchildren see
you differently than parents

a hope for a long life
and the possibility of
one day being old

or someone whose mind
more closely resembles
in innocence and simplicity

or simply as adults
whose rules can be ignored
with no real consequence.

October 24, 2020

ETD

As a child, I could never
understand why, when I knew
that it ws time to go, my parents
were never ready, always needed
one or two more things; and why
en route, we were never quite there
even though I had waited the ten
minutes more they said it would take.

But I had nothing on my beloved
dog Mindy, who would stand
by the back door, leash in moth
and growl, wondering, no doubt
why I always need more time,
it wasn’t, she was certain,
because shoes were necessary,
or a rain jacket, she got by
just fine without them, and
why my last bathroom stop had
to take precedence over hers would
always be beyond comprehension.

July 10, 2020

ROCK AND HARD PLACE

The hardest age by far
is the one where you are stuck
in the middle, children below,
parents above, and utterly no
hope of escape from the vise.
Things your mother could do effortlessly
now seem impossible for her, and those
things now need doing immediately.
Your children, ever wise at creating
novel approaches to anything they want
in life regardless of your opinion,
suddenly cannot perform the simple tasks
they once could, more so if the task
takes them away from whatever
is their pleasure of the moment.
It is this middle period where
you cease to live, at least
to live fully, taken with tasks
above and below, and only
in the rare spare moment
can you contemplate the tasks
you will no longer be able to do
as soon as your children cease
to be a burden and can be one

April 12, 2020

THAT LOOK

She stares at the menu,
her eyes incandesce brighter
than an eight year old’s should be able.
And I can eat everything
on the menu, she says to herself,
her smile broadening, as she thinks
and they may enjoy it too, and I
can move them one more step
in the right direction.
She has been a vegetarian
for six months, since the day
she declared to the waiter
that she would never again
eat a dead animal, and she
has held to it without fail since.
She says her father is almost
a pescatarian, and she whispers
in an aside that close to vegetarian
and an easy move once you are there.
Her four year old brother laughs
and says today I’m vegetarian too,
and the waitress laughs and thinks
in a vegan restaurant,
that is a universal truth.

March 21, 2020

DEPARTING

We now live in a strange world where nothing is as it was mere weeks ago. I am blessed to live on a small nature preserve and have been spending my afternoons with camera in hand. So if you want something other than words (which follow) you are welcome to visit https://www.flickr.com/photos/98342503@N00/, my Flickr site, which is updated daily. A sample of what you will find:

 

IMG_0363

and now:

 

DEPARTURE

It seems odd how often
our fathers depart suddenly, our mothers
make a slower retreat, slipping away while
always still present, a death
by 1000 days, the cuts inflicted
on our psyche, small wounds
that never fully heal, but fade, so the scars
are only seen and felt from the inside.
My parents never did things as expected,
so my mother complained bitterly
of the small difficulties of life,
until the morning she suddenly departed,
at the stroke of 6:15 while
my father lingers, still happy
in ever shortening increments, both
of us knowing he is fading away
and I may never know he has departed
after he is gone.