“The first thing you hope

is to not crash . . .

The second

is to feel you did reasonably well

So I succeeded in both of those,”

he says,

a smile escaping,

releasing a few of the

giddy little bubbles that are rising up

making him feel light.

The scores corroborate;

something shifts and settles,

and he stands more solidly.

I too feel something –

a long, slow release –

no need to worry for my son:

grow in peace.

He won’t be tilting up his head in pride,

his hair in practiced affect tossed

nor crying in a bathroom stall

his dreams in shards, his prospects lost.

He’ll walk in long-legged, languid stride

towards his desired profession

He’ll find his way in his own time

My task: maintain connection.

Yesterday my husband and I were walking the path around a neighborhood park, where softball games were going on, one Little League and one adult, in fancy fields with high backstops and well groomed diamonds.  I remembered a time before they remodeled the park, where I was one of a group of moms informally assembled with our kids in an impromptu pick-up game that was all about helping the kids succeed.  I was pitching, slowly, telegraphing clearly, willing the bat to connect with the ball, and it often did.  This was a game I had never played well as a child, and the kids here were also not ball players.  In that short time, sun setting in early summer evening, we all had a glow of success.  Now that scruffy, climbable backstop is gone, and the kids are mostly grown, one of them married.  And I only see the moms occasionally – years can go by between the times we casually run into each other.  This poem arose from those thoughts and images:

We move within uncomprehended rules

of what will stay and what will fall away

What’s solid ground will shift and sink, we’ll stray

No way to hedge for what we’ll win or lose

The field we played on then is gone

So, too, are all the kids we played with

We couldn’t even hold the friends we stayed with

Our life arcs intersected and moved on

Back then it seemed that we invested time

and thought one day to reap time’s golden fruit

but many never pollinated – dried on vines

of fading memories, and many lost pursuits

turn out to matter less than we had thought –

What we have now worth more than what we sought.

What can dislodge you from your tree

of cool contempt, and do you need to fall

to feel connection, crashing ground to call

sharp echoes through your bones till you agree

that scornful heights are not the place to be?

No, let no crashing jar your tender bones

Instead, we’ll come with quiet, gentle hands

to wrap you in a hammock soft and grand

and bring you firmly, safely home.

For there’s no lofty place that you can climb

above the hands of Love that surely come

to every soul that’s sad, each heart that’s numb

and bring you back to your most needed rhyme

within the round of Love, in perfect time.

the small world of everybody

has tight constraints:

what you can do

is hemmed in by

what they will think.  What you say

must fall within the ribbon of normality

and cool — that so-illusive stance

is nice, but not required.  What’s needed is

to not be weird, nor yet a type

that they can name and shame.

to be defined

outside the lines

is simply

not an option.

It doesn’t matter how you set

your card house of opinions

how eloquent your arguments

how justified your feelings

The law is that they all must fall

in showers of helpless flailing

Though you may rant, you can’t forestall

their swift, colossal failing

It doesn’t matter.  When you’re done

with sputtering and grieving

a more compelling rule will dawn

will open you to its receiving:

No human posturing can be exempt

The tide of Love obliterates contempt.