[lit-ideas] SUNDAY POEM
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "LIT-IDEAS" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:46:08 -0500
FATHER'S DAY AT THE MIDTOWN PIZZA CAFE
Paxton bent back in her aunt's arms to look at the ceiling fan.
She straightened up and bent back again, yes, it was still there,
she straightened up and bent back and bent back and bent back
again and again and again and each time it was still there.
Things persevere through time, she thinks. A comforting thought.
I think how much things have changed. Thirty-four years ago
I was holding her mother thusly. I believed we were special people:
more alive, more loving, more attuned to the soul's needs than most.
I believed in my children, I believed my mission
was to raise them to be messiahs.
And they are. Though not as I imagined back then.
They struggle like their mother and I did to pay their bills.
And they're pretty much as stupid as we were then,
believing themselves precursors of a new humanity.
But there's nothing new about them, all is as it ever was.
The more things stay the same, the more I change.
The process of becoming a human being is a slow one.
It takes decades. My children honor me on Father's Day
with pizza and beer. They genuinely love me,
but wish I weren't so cynically romantic.
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