Beginnings Also Mean Goodbyes

                     Poetry Friday this week is at Dori Reads with Doraine Bennett.  Thanks to her, we are able to enjoy everyone's posts this week.  Thanks for hosting Dori!

I’m still writing goodbye poems for a personal project about different ways of looking at children (mine, others, and grandchildren, too) growing up.  I’ve chosen to do a series of poems at different stages in children’s lives, essentially saying goodbye each time.  I want to put them together in a book with pictures at the particular stage I am describing in the poem.  I love telling stories through poetry, and I love poems of goodbye, so I thought this would be a good way to combine both passions.  Someday I hope to put it all together in a book for my family.   Here is my most recent one, about my grandson Carter.

(7)

From fields of childhood,

hop the fence

and then you will be there,

middle school,

a world of your own.

Always summer there,

with slamming lockers

and clanging bells,

assembly line lunches where

I hope that most of the food

won’t kill you, at least on the days

before tests,

for teachers on whom you must depend

on their own hope for tomorrow.

And for friends, that surround with

crazy words and shoulder slams,

heys for the mornings.

Gather the seeds for another day,

for this new world. 

Your roots are deep.

Now at eleven, leafy growth

amazes.

But as you grow you’ll learn to hate

the wicked flowers,

to stomp the growth of cruelty

when needed. 

You’ll choose roses.

I miss the boy who played

with Fisher Price adventure people,

and Matchbox cars,

fighting the bad,

righting the wrongs.

Your adventures today

are not plastic, but real.

If I could, I would keep

you safe, but

the fence waits.

You’ll find more seeds in

your pants pockets.