I won't read the other parody because it's long
and it's not that good poem.
I do want to read two serious poems and finish up here.
One is a new poem that will be in my book coming out
next month called Discovering Mobility.
And it's for my first child, my little boy
who is 14 months this week.
I wrote this several months ago for him.
I guess because I have a fear like probably lots of us have,
of never seeing him, a fear of not seeing him.
And so I finally finished this poem
and it starts with putting together
a walker, if you know what a walker is
for a baby at six months.
And he was watching me as I was putting it together.
And that's how this poem started.
It tries to be a lullaby but it never quite makes it.
Discovering mobility to my first child.
Lying on his stomach, he watches me assemble the new walker,
his six months already behind him
like some infantile myth of reason.
I attach the wheels, the springs, the padded gripper,
and his eyes follow.
These first instructions on how to extend human capability,
technological first steps, after which purpose
traces its path to the stars we are born under.
When I place him in the seat, his two legs dangling
through the holes, he pushes himself up immediately
as if he wants me to recognize in him my own clumsy dignity.
His first steps are so directionless,
contentment escapes from him, and an undecipherable
sound that I repeat like a vowel.
I watch him maneuver, his excitement leading him
to the circular patterns which form
the dance we dance unconsciously in worship of our return.
I too make my way across the Earth.
Sometimes, I'm as unsteady as you are today, Joseph.
I'm leaving your mother.
My legs push hard against the gravity that
makes us resentful and strong.
The trouble you are having now you
will have again over ice, through mud,
on journeys that will take you to
far into interiors that have no treasures, no exits, only
new ground to cover.
So walk Joseph, walk away.
I am leaving this house in a few days.
I wanted to write a lullaby and sing it to you,
hold you up to the window light, and watch
the pupils of your eyes go small.
My image in them crystallizing under the constant pressure
of this game of focus.
So close your eyes son and keep me with you.
I sing the dark to comfort you.
And walk Joseph, walk away.
The melody we leave behind will carry and sleeps
wind a long, long way, for now this poem will have to do.
Five miles as a short lyric I made in half an hour,
I walk Joseph, I walk away.
Measure my love and the distance between us.
Every map is a palm dipped in ink.
100 miles is a waltz we learn.
So dance, Joseph, neither of us can talk, can talk away.
I sing the dark to comfort you.
For now this poem will have to do.
The uneven staggered steps you take
are the steps that I anticipate.
Someday on a street when I begin to curse
the mobility, the freedom, the loaves, that lead men
to the strangers they become.