....From The Tree Of...............Love & Family
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_______________________________________________________ Acorns, To Catastrophe Watching stone topple, I thought of Stalin's carved megalith, lying on the punished ground of the Ukraine, such a huge head -large as a man. Hungarians gathered round, there were people grinning, joyous, just the same when Hussein's statue tumbled today- and I thought about Hitler, thought about Julius Caesar, wondering why we let them get so big, beginning with small murders, over and over. Never turn your back on a brutal megalomaniac -someone stop the next one when he kicks his first dog- mothers, keep a sharp eye. Those who aren't smart will have to learn to be brave- cause ready or not, there comes another tumbling likeness every score or so- and Saturday evening after only two hours labor, grandson number three split into this world, without a doctor, but with heart such heart, his shoulders heaving into nurse's hands. Gabriel Damon-- do not rush these twenty years to pull ....another statue down. Ninth Month Madam Butterfly How can I tell you just how vulnerable you look and brave. Ungainly now your waddled walk, belly taut and big, future thrusting out like a ledge of possibility you curve your back away from, balancing the weight of what will be a locomotive through your life. Bawling, beating air with clenched up chipmunk fists, filling every day with twenty five hours full of feelings like a train through tunnel: light, face, brief case, light, face, brief-- too fast to really feel but ride it. Let it pull your mouth wide into grin with the speed of love. Lightning strike of lifetime, infant moving through a thin, young mother's heart about to burst with it; it's drawing nigh, it's nearly tapping at the glass- the chrysalis cracked. Watching Wayne It was like watching something turn from leathery to supple, melting, shaping into something else. Hanging on to what it knows and reaching, almost madly for the new, the scary irresistable, first breath holy one. They are all holy, little babes in swaddling, sweet-breathed, eyes unseeing, trying hard to focus see the tall tall man his long, thin fingers trembling; holding on, holding on to it, the moving wriggle with a look of Easter redemption on his face: .....................................hoodwinked .............................into joy. The Real Houdini Rabbits out of hats. Doves from paper posies, white gloves and a satin stovepipe, maybe a cape with bright red lining cannot summon it. No Presto-Chango, sleek baton tapped on the brim- but there is magic in these trees a week ago were spindle brown today are ballerina colors. Pastel rose and pink, bud on bud of gorgeous given gratis, no gratuity asked- just let me see just let me see, just yesterday a lump unfurled to flesh from under my daughter's swollen smock; there are no clocks, it is forever now and there is magic in mere fingers, nails as small as seeds. They grasp at what they need and that simplicity is magic. Spring time trees and baby William are what get me through; they have nothing to do, but sit on the sill and sing. New Velvet Like the inside of the arm skin of God- or no, how an indigo sky would feel if we got close, when it's alit with twinkled holiness and prayer is possible. It's like every good feeling rolled into a single moment without a needle prick of fear or doubt, or even an awareness of the tiring strife of living, it is to touch 'forever' to touch this child, three hours old- this William Matthew, sleeping in his miraculous suit of life, whose velvet rubs such love on me. Waiting For Showtime William will not wake up. What dances on his inner eyelids, baby marbles rolling underneath? A back and forth ping pong dream? I'll bet it teems with diamond-trailing unicorns as William sleeps, warm in his soft blue blanket. Must be powder horns of question marks that bring him bliss, his baby brain asking 'What is this and this?' and scans a panoramic puzzle, then there's this: his grandma, crouched and funny-looking, eyes all under water, waiting for dozing William to pry an eye up, fix her with a startle look, so she can see what William sees: the world unwalked and new. Dirigible You make me buoyant, big and slow enough to take all the time in the world to get from words to meaning, tight and cryptic, but with love, just rolls out limp and light- every thing is fine as long as the sky is filled with love willed airships tipping, nodding, plodding the clouds like princes riding their camels in a line- be my valentine, my caravan; come hold me up-I'm down, and I need your lift. Like Holding Jello I'm afraid of my love for this one- this child this time, feels like 'last'. I have a powerful shake of God inside as though my fingertips leave pocks of love each place I touch; I'd die happy holding him whole and never hurt. It feels like melting, some times love's too much. What if the skin tears, it's so tu lip?-I want to stay here looking, holding him close- it is the most unbridled happiness spliced horribly with loss, in every tick tock. Lohengrin Again Silk, or what passed for silk on the backs of every ilk and tight ties chafing necks, flowers, flowers everywhere, a reedy tenor warbling some religious hymn everyone's outgrown as they shift from one cheek to the other growing tired against the pews, waiting for the most expensive dress and veil and lace to walk with screaming feet pushed into shoes too small down the long, thin corridor of doubt upon the whitest crash of over-priced plastic ever was: what a wedding. If there ever was a body of gaudier revelers, I'd be shocked to see it. Someday, oh, I don't know, if you should ask me and I say yes, I'd like to stand atop a hill with solemn trees as best men, watch breeze lift your graying hair, stare into your earnest face that is as potent as any truth serum, and say, I do, I do I always have- past this, past death and all the rest. Raising Tom There is a way to bring up boys to keep Tom Sawyer in; so he can live in the breast long after chest hairs grow. And there's a way to bring up boys so every robin egg's to throw, and each and every doe's potential prey; their tails wink white to make them targets the way the good Lord God intended it to be not Disney stories walking off some Christmas card; it's hard. You need to be first grabber up of everything and last to wonder why; though there is plenty of meat to eat, meat's not the point, it's sport. Everything in life is sport of one kind or another: that's the other way to bring up boys. Given these two models, I would say my grandson, Isaac, nearly three is on his way to stealing Becky Thatcher's heart some day. The afternoon of Aunt Holly's outdoor wedding, tuxedo proud, a miniature to the men- at least in looks- he hankered so to follow his daddy down to the shallows. Squat there. Watch for minnows. Catch the salamander shooters, skooting under sunlight just to marvel at the fact that they were there and let them be, and then beam up at me who knew he'd found young Tom inside. That he has, like his father before him gratitude enough to keep as much alive as possible; odd, when you think that his father, Matt my son is an Airborne Ranger till you stop to consider, to him that just means sacrifice: protecting what he can for as long as he can- my boy, who never even shot a deer, not once in life. On To Page 8 .............. Return To Contents This site sponsered by 
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