What’s A Parent To Do?

I know you have been a good parent
Have always tried your best
Sometimes giving too much
Other occasions- nothing left to give.
Reviewing all the values you hold so dear
Demonstrating the wisdom
In your every day actions,
Or sometimes, just your words.
And even, the ugly, uncontrolled words.
Wanting your child to have all the joys you did
While shielding them from all the sadness that was yours.
Intermittently teaching them what not to do
By our over-embarrassing examples.
The inconceivable concept
Of conceiving our perfect image
When all we do is experimental
What we are told is that it is “innate, intuitive”
But, that just adds to the complex
Of not being a “natural”
Trying to understand and not understanding
The developmental challenges
Of each unique being
That may remind us of ourselves-
Foibles and fine moments
But are not us.
Fine china exposed to the rough and tumble
Parental adoring, selfless love
And loathing agony of fretful lack of connection
Parenting has its moments of glory and assurance
Of a piece of us living on
Weaved between the perilous uncertainties.

Post War Anticipation

A revolution
Conspiracy style
Surmounting the physicality
Elevator up
Through the cognitions
Breathing a breath of defiance
Resisting the reactivation
Until the primitive brain recedes
The white flag floating in the breeze
Reminding one of the helplessness
Within the cell block of Anxiety.

A Fingertip Away

It’s been thirty years
More or less
Away from what was
But never distant.
Can’t help but wonder
What would have been
Could it have been.
Only time has past
And all which we have succumbed to
Dreamily in our thoughts
Of oh, how luscious
If we could only return
To the youth of our love
Equipped with the lifetime knowledge
We have since possessed.
You call to say “hello”
Are you a lover or a friend
Dragging through these epic times
All the while waiting to return.

Hormone Harmonics

Adolescent frantic
Teen age panic
Bursting with drama
As if that was what life is all about.
Feeling it all
Wanting it all
Invincibly peeling it all
Unraveling the imagined
Freedoms of adulthood.