Monday, May 28, 2012

Children

She yelled at me in CAPITAL letters..belligerent, incoherent.  My usual armor gave way, and I left... immune at last to her extortion. I was an Innocent...still lost in the illusion of my children's childhood.  I had never experienced this harmonic of a four year old's resentment and confusion about the bonds of dependency and the pre-mature strife for independence.  I was in the "mambie pambie" world of fairy godmothers, mothers and grandmothers..What's the difference, really?

My childhood, enchanted.. rich in education, imagination and total ignorance of the tribulations of my parents; who like many couples with children were sacrificing their passions and goals for the beings who would be cast to sink or swim, maybe never fulfilling anyone's dreams...not their own or the ones imposed by their parents.

My children were free to play.  I loved the chaos and collaboration.  If only they never had to face the reality of life that I sadly did not completely prepare them for, and have so so suffered the consequences of.

Bazook

The mornings are cranky wiley and weird.
Slingshot's dart just whizzed past my ear.
Twinkling Toes is shrieking again
as Baby Bazook takes off in the wind.
The ba-bas are lined up
The TV's full blast
The laundry is piled up
The kitchen's aghast!

I'm thinking of Spock
and child expert, Ginott.
Motherhood is something
they will never ever know!

1985


Greyhound

I accompanied a few rhymes
in my zooming - appreciated
their presence however void
of prosaic due.

I started composing a title, "I Believed You"
and trusted my stupid intuition, religious
contradiction, ancient babble's new rendition.

Now look at the mess I created.
Lao Tsu, your lofty ideals.
How could I expect that a guilt ridden teen
could grasp what scholars question?
And inmates, alas, as the last light flickers
waiting in cells with cravings for snickers.

And I remain searching for Buddha's
mention of  "ethics" trying to comprehend
"renunciation" the rigors of denial and a
mother's inclination to spoil a child.

10/31/09