My Son
My son is two.
I watch him walk
like a drunken prince.
With his body bare I can see
his soul better.
His shoulder blades
gesture like vestiges of wings.
His features stenciled upon pale flesh
by hands that have been before me.
He so wants to be like me.
His every movement like a dusty mirror
or awkward shadow of a bird in flight.
Every sound an echo heard.
Every cell pregnant with my urges.
But my urge is to be like him.
To return to childhood’s safe embrace
and certain honor.
If I return to this place
I hope my eyes will look again upon his face
even until his blades are wings once more.
Until I have circled his creaturehood
and know every hidden cleft
where I have left my print indelible
unable to be consumed.
Until all that he is
is in me and our hands are clasped, forged,
entwined, in voiceless celebration.
Until we are alone like two leaves shimmering
high above a treeless landscape
never to land.
Nameless Boy
Beyond the frontier
where borders blur into unknown thoughts
there is a nameless boy–
a drop of pure human light.
Through narrow cracks in the splintered fence
I watch his innocence with envy,
searching for the right meaning of his movements.
The twilight of his smile
nourishes my heart
like crumbs of God’s light.
A longing in my mouth to speak,
to weep,
and gather this child into my arms
and encipher his nature into mine.
Through the exchange of eyes–
glances, purloined and routed into blindness,
our language annulled.
I can only grope towards him
with antenna thoughts
that dance in praise of his youthful beauty.
I am waiting for stones to bloom.
For venomous skies to wander into oblivion.
For tracks to emerge like dust in a beam of light.
Life’s clever poison
is closing the gate.
The cracks are mended–the vision expunged.
And the nameless boy dissolves,
for there was no earth inside him.