At the rat-a-tat. I don’t like it.
The kills, I don’t like it.
Care packages,
tumbling, hulking soldiers
dropping – I don’t like it. No,
I don’t like it.
But I like him.
Tag Archives: parenting
When you have children
When you have children your heart
leaves the safety of the rib cage.
The bones open up and the thing is out there
exposed
to torrents of bruises and dyes.
Catholic Dad
I’ve got a quiverful of children.
The Bible calls them arrows
and me lucky
and I am.
Though I’ve a pretty good view
of the target, and pull the bow
the same way every time,
bends in the air
send the one a-high
and the one a-low
and dams back in
their beaver,
aquiver.
I duck myself when they circle around.
I practice.
I do practice.
But my son and my daughter
fly where they will.
Over and under but especially
under the hill,
they fly where they will.
The Dutch bike boxes full of children
You can’t get around them.
They wheel their kids with a parent’s eyes,
the road and road forever.
The weight
I saw God
Well, no, a man
at church.
He held his baby boy
close to his chest,
and his daughter followed.
Oh that baby, I know,
he’ll light up and
strike out,
and dad’ll be pissed,
and when the sword is slashing
there’s cutting all around.
But through it all
there’s this:
the embrace,
and the watching eye
of the girl.
In loco parentis
Something has swamped and stumped
the growth of that child,
and I am sick at the thought of it.
Trout
She lays her eggs
in a gravel nest,
crowns them with rock
and flees.
Utrecht Journal 