Gentle to a child
He so gentle to a child
despite he tore himself apart
irony’s hard metal strapped
around a quickly tallied life.
Infants could not stay away
they held his curiosity
seemed drawn as he to those
who would debate the world
seen one foot from the floor
gathered in an upstairs room
apart from where the adults played
at six I’ll watch he doesn’t fall
a Christmas party passed that way
he’d listen gravely, yet a boy
himself, soon imprinted
Zeffirelli’s star scarred lover.
With his Beauty sitting by him
at a summer camp the child he reached
a hand toward was enraptured
captured in a photo love’s exchange.
In few ways he was more generous
and it grew from early childhood
how he’d treat them as his equal
and they gravitated like his moons.
It’s said of boys they hardly care
so single tracked, on point
not like girls who practice, imitate
he needed no instructions.
Though he never saw the danger
strapped by dreams awake
being needful being tangled
heady fragrance in her bower
his feet in vines and tripping
paid, sad Jesus, for the taste
guarding secrets to his chest
coming out ensorcelled
into sunlight, bludgeoned
iron smell on impact, sweet
soul flown too soon he left
too young a field to search.
To be that cavalier believing
love might make him whole
and lead him to his offspring
to be so disconnected
he was innocent of caution
having taken from his birth
a tangled truth of parents chose
instead his Blacksburg Juliet.
A single phone call, text, a friend
come by the room on Saturday
might have called him off from there
–is this not a sadness?
I know he saw himself a father
laughing girls would skip toward
light feet dancing, and he would have loved his boys with calmer
patience than his father’s
charmed by curiosity
their programmed need for love
he would have gifted them
the need to learn of everything
and led them by a gentle voice
no matter how they tested
would let it all get by him.
I mourn these days of absence
hear them cry, those almost ones
the wit of him they’ll never know
nor carry in their eyes.