Parents and Children
Parents and Children
Within fathers there are sons.
Within sons, fathers.
Within mothers there are daughters.
Within daughters, mothers.
Was it Wordsworth who said that
The child is the father of the man?
I don’t know why I asked.
I know it was Wordsworth who said it.
Maybe I only wanted to say it
Because it is so beautiful and so true.
They who seemed old to us when we were young
Were younger then than we are now.
Your father was a young man that day
The gravel lane took a bite out of your knee,
Your mother a young woman that night
You cried out for her in the dark.
We are hardly finished being children
Before we are having children ourselves.
It falls upon those of us who don’t have children
To be the parents of us all.
Of old women who, in taking our arms,
Remember their father’s arms.
Of old men who, in taking our hands,
Remember their mother’s hands.
Where else could we possibly have come from
But from inside one another?
And so there can be no end to being held
Nor any end to holding.