Heres an old poem i found from when ben was a baby AWW...: FIRST POEM FOR BENJAMIN LASKO Its six-forty-five a.m. and I have been awake and watching my son sleep. His dreams must be softer than light, softer than his new skin. Ahead of him, a lifetime as difficult as faith has become to me. And I am looking into the delicate mist of his breath— This new life that has become somehow something more than the sum of our genetic memories. Divided by the fruit of the tree of life experience. And I wonder too about his dreams. What do babies dream? Before the more inward life of words and things can begin making cliché from the language of living. I wonder about my mother having this selfsame dialogue. And of what it must have been like for me, at this age, not yet in touch with the lexicon of loss— this crippled Leviathan that experience makes of us. I imagine my son my mirror. And I search his face for a sign. Because I am also looking into the future— (one free of me.) Liberated perhaps at last from that search, however futile, for life after living. Still I gaze as dumbly as some fawning fawn into his fluttering lids. As if scouring each Upswept corner for clues to the mystery of the he in me and all those that came before. I’m both father And son now And share this moment With all fathers (sons mothers and daughters) who are forever awake and holding their earlier selves; wondering inwardly, and scared witless It’s as though I am Seeking in this flawless face, Some vague imperfection— that crack or fissure which must have swallowed whole all that holy air of hope from my own Now grown-up, lungs. As if to locate That moment written here on our shared face; could somehow redeem us. As if his short, tiny, labored respiration, could resurrect, and make whole— even for a moment, that lost something. Or, as if to know, would be to reclaim and rename it— a blank slate newborn and without blemish— Not unlike this delicate child, now asleep in my arms.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:55:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015