Dear Sons

Dear sons,

Your mother is pregnant now with our third child, so I have been watching you a lot this week, because she is tired and sick. My patience is thin, and I have not been the father you deserved, but I love you and wanted to relay several things that caught my eye as I spent time with you the last few days.

This morning, Charlie, you came into Oliver’s room wearing my glasses to be funny. Mom reprimanded you, but I love your sense of humor. I hope and pray we do not miss your jokes or so poorly respond to you in the future.

Oliver has been hitting Charlie, repeating as small children do the things they have observed or experienced. It makes me sad, but then I realize there is no malice yet. You simply think that’s how we interact, young Oliver. I pray we teach you better ways.

After church today we had to drive around a bit. Mom wasn’t in the car and we needed to keep Oliver awake. The joint effort between all three of us—shouting and shaking Oliver’s car seat, as he grinningly tries to keep his eyes open—made my heart full and teased my soul with joy for things to come.

As we were packing the car at one point, Charlie, you tried to follow me into the parking lot and I commanded you to stay at the sidewalk. After a conflict, you did, but the anguish on your face and the way you stomped and cried, the battle between desire for me and the attempt to obey, split my heart in two. Later, you and Oliver shared a bag of fruit snacks with each other, and I have never been so proud.

I pray I can raise you in a way worthy of the men our God has made you two to be. You boys have passion, and grace, and divine wisdom many others lack. I am proud to bursting of you two.

All my love,

Dad
October 29, 2017

Vixen

The vixen screams at midnight
down behind the neighbor’s house
—distant, probably over by Big Rock
along the creek—a haunting shriek
carried along thin, dark, chilly air.
It reminds me of my soul, which
remains despite microelectronics,
sucked this way and that by these
unknown, un-studied distractions,
this light-beamed opiate age.
Somewhere inside my ribs I too
scream at my freezing half-moons,
urgent with desire for what’s Real,
God damn it: loudly protest myself
and all my choices; crawling late
to sleep after hours of odorless
Nothing—

She screams again, a violent noise
faint in the woods. I head back in, to
watch them score another TV point.
Later, stupor’d by electric sideshows,
I hear her once again, but now
much closer, now
deep within.










december 2017

The Presentation

She laughs, but not with her eyes,
which widely bear down on mine:
desperate with feigned confidence,
tinged with distracted desire--then
on to the next face, and the next,
before clicking back to me. I meet
her gaze evenly, unspeaking, offer
an attentive face from the crowd.
Happy with my bureaucratic excuse
to look unfettered at a pretty face,
I’m waiting for the meeting's end, for

the next thing, and the next, until
I click back home at night, feeling
vacant toward familiar faces, which
often for obscure reasons, I avoid.

The news proclaims another man
met ruin for some lust-filled act; and
in between the faces of my worlds,
I imagine myself in such a place.
The scene opens: I have found
success, and fame, and riches,
which in movies associates with
easy sex and women, of course.
But the dawn of wealth brings
no girls with kind desires for me;
no gentle flirts to capture all my
vacant thoughts, nor coy smiles
to inflate my vacant heart. And yet
what I have has no mystery; while
to what intrigues me, I have no right.
The weak man's simple conceit--to
gaze in silence, never to touch--seems
incomplete now, surrounded by this
newfound glitz and glamour. How did
this impoverished desire survive
my overwhelming wealth and fame?!
--And yet it does, and crushes all...

Snapping back, I drop this gaze,
ashamed even of the line of thoughts,
and wait for the pretty face to let us go.
I'll hold a familiar hand tonight, and gaze
unfettered at the pretty face I know.




nov 2017