Gravitation
When sun and moon
cause her to glow
with proud devotion,
and even clouds
do not block the flow
of her emotion,
how many tears,
salt sad or glad,
which fall in tides
some low some high,
cry from the eyes
of Mother Ocean?
When sun and moon
cause her to glow
with proud devotion,
and even clouds
do not block the flow
of her emotion,
how many tears,
salt sad or glad,
which fall in tides
some low some high,
cry from the eyes
of Mother Ocean?
Before murdered innocence,
before fear,
before hiding,
before blood,
before bodies,
before mourning,
before school that morning,
or soon before that morning,
parents gave children
affectionate advice
and probably kissed them.
Even as he pulls into my driveway,
and I’m happy that safely he is here,
inside I struggle with negative
projections that to him I don’t reveal.
Each day passes fast, then his visit ends.
Resigned, I’m on the porch to watch as he
packs his blue car with bags and gifts to take.
No tears, I will wave him out of my view.
I must not focus on such visions now
that he has just arrived, we have not hugged,
must reacquaint, me and this man, my son,
so tall, so bright his brain and smile, my boy.
Though when he departs, an adult again,
I’ll linger in his room, still cluttered but
then empty, and there I’ll write new poems
that fill space but do not lose the echo.