Summer vacation is over in many ways. Last week I took my oldest daughter to college where she will start her freshman year studying visual arts. The summer started with me coming to terms with her graduation from high school and my accepting her transition into adulthood. Now, as this summer comes to a conclusion, I must force the greater demon in me to accept that she is no longer my little girl and that she's making her own way in college. However, I am the one who must learn to deal with her moving on and being so far away. Unfortunately, I lack her grace and aptitude and will probably never learn to accept her absence.
Poetry with a Daughter
She wants to write about human suffering,
so I tell her the difference between
metaphor and simile,how a word
is only as strong as its closest companion.
"Father," she says, and scribbles a line.
We talk about comparisons. Sky is not "blue"
but "the color of Windex?" "Oh, like
a new bruise," she says. Another line.
but "the color of Windex?" "Oh, like
a new bruise," she says. Another line.
Then there is contact vs. impact. She looks
away. Pay attention. We could have so much
to talk about. How a lemon tastes like a new tooth.
How poetry is tart in so many ways,
poems about crayoned people on the fridge
dashing headlong into the invisible wind, their bodies
hollowed with white, waiting to be colored
with children who keep on growing, until they have
perishables of their own,
and children. "Mother," she says,
and the poem is finished. I read:
Father makes lemons blue,
children color in the wind.
Mother keeps babies teeth,
and children. "Mother," she says,
and the poem is finished. I read:
Father makes lemons blue,
children color in the wind.
Mother keeps babies teeth,
To remind us what is true.
- m.r. kidd
She's Leaving Home - The Beatles
Losing You - John Butler Trio
So Far Away - Carole King
Teach Your Children - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
1 comment:
a wonderful poem.
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