For My Son

I doubly don’t understand your position in life, son,

male and the baby of a family.

I hope you don’t resent me

and my weakened powers of imagination

for that.

Judging from your personality though,

your gentle joy

and playful energy,

you don’t seem like the type to hold a grudge.

I have held off on writing this to you, my child,

for far too long

and selfishly.

Second child,

wife and mother already before you,

I simply didn’t want to waste any time

I could have spent
just being with you.

Undocumented child,
you and I,

from womb to world,

always living in the busy now,

our motions constant,

our rotations cyclical,

present,

and real.

For the longest time

all I could do to coddle you

was to protect your naps

allowing you to rest

like sacred messiah

until you rose again.

Yet our busy reality has managed to maintain
the odd presence of the amazing.

Both awesome and provincial,

my love for you surprising and idyllic.

Nothing about being a parent before

prepared me for the fear and joy of loving you.

You are always new.

Old soul.

We all knew it.

Everyone said it.

From infancy your eyebrows alone

told tales of ancient tragedies, heroic epics, and comedies

in a wiggle.

I preferred to watch you first crawl
then run

in the beauty of your existence

rather than paint you in an untrue portrait.

Nevertheless, as close as I can come to the truth,

here it is, all flawed and list-like:

you, bookish and athletic,

a undeniable heartthrob by age one.

Your smiles wide,

your eyes dance
direct routes to Truth and Joy.

A hungry yet slim boy

embodying all the happiness and enlightenment associated with

a chubby Buddha

whose pants keep falling down.

Yet also, you, our Bard,

constructing babbling, rhythmic speeches,

illustrating calm, simple solutions to great problems,

pointing again and again to the humanism

and proof of "'Dis.”

Your sister and I your captive audience

and ardent admirers

floating on our backs,

eyes skyward

on your very sound.

You, your father’s breath.

We, helpless but to love you

and delight in your generous laughter.

Poetry has little place

when it is has always been so clear to us all that

you are the final word.

But know that I tried.

Know that despite our inability to give you everything we wanted,

you found all the answers anyway

and ingeniously.

Each moment with you
an everyday miracle

right here

atop the daily grind.

Each moment,

as rough currents,

both real and imagined,

knock about our flimsy shelters,

we learn from you, gentle fish,
born into the world with ease

and swimming through it still

quite effortlessly.

You, forever our baby.

You, forever our moonstone and sun.

Each moment,

my baby,

a chance to make peace

and accept good fortune.

Each moment,

le Benjamin,

an occasion to celebrate

our lives' final word

and be thankful.