Boy, Almost Six

 

Boy, Almost Six

You are five or as you say, almost  six.
You have a toolbox
    like me.
You read books in bed
    like me.
You even make up poems
    like me.
I am thirty-five which is almost forty.
I wish I could cry
    like you
and scream at people when I'm angry
    like you
and heal my wounds with a blanket
    like you.
With your eyes through which
    I am learning to see,
take in our redwood mountains,
    our blackberry hills,
    quick squirrels.
Brake for them, please, when you drive
    when you're sixteen, which is almost
    twenty-one.
Learn to love moss
    and fat spiders.
Feel the fungus feeding on decay.
I am rotting, my son, as you feed on me
    and I would have it
        no other way.
 

…..
 

From my book Son of a Poet

47 years ago my first child was born.
When I first saw him, first touched him, a glow began inside my body. Still feel it. Shortly after he was born, I crossed the age of 30. Small pains, small limits, began inside my body. Then larger. Before my son’s sixth birthday, I wrote the poem: “Boy, Almost Six,” and took the photo you see here.
Now I am 76, which is almost 90. Now that boy has a child, almost eleven, and another, almost nine. Life is almost a circle, always a miracle.