Poems About Fathers and Grandfathers Iv

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers IV Neglect by Michael R. Burch What good are your tears? They will not spare the dying their anguish. What good is your concern to a child sick of living, waiting to perish? What good, the warm benevolence of tears without action? What help, the eloquence of prayers, or a pleasant benediction? Before this day is gone, how many more will die with bellies swollen, wasted limbs, and eyes too parched to cry? I fear for our souls as I hear the faint lament of their souls departing... mournful, and distant. How pitiful our "effort, " yet how fatal its effect. If they died, then surely we killed them, if only with neglect. Pan by Michael R. Burch ... Among the shadows of the groaning elms, amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves... ... Once there were paths that led to coracles that clung to piers like loosening barnacles... ... where we cannot return, because we lost the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss... ... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens' hair who never were enchanted, and the stairs... ... that led up to the Fortress in the trees will not support our weight, but on our knees... ... we still might fit inside those splendid hours of damsels in distress, of rustic towers... ... of voices of the wolves' tormented howls that died, and live in dreams' soft, windy vowels... Leaf Fall by Michael R. Burch Whatever winds encountered soon resolved to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall. In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each dry leaf into its place and built a high, soft bastion against earth's gravitron? a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright impediment to fling ourselves upon. And nothing in our laughter as we fell into those leaves was like the autumn's cry of also falling. Nothing meant to die could be so bright as we, so colorful? clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again. The Folly of Wisdom by Michael R. Burch She is wise in the way that children are wise, looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, so I smile, and I follow... And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves that flutter above us, and what she believes? I can almost remember?goes something like this: the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss. She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well if only we find him! The woodpecker's knell as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree that once was a fortress to someone like me rings wildly above us. Some things that we know we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow. Just Smile by Michael R. Burch We'd like to think some angel smiling down will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard, ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps, his doddering progress through the scarlet house to tell his mommy "boo-boo!, " only two. We'd like to think his reconstructed face will be as good as new, will often smile, that baseball's just as fun with just one arm, that God is always Just, that girls will smile, not frown down at his thousand livid scars, that Life is always Just, that Love is Just. We do not want to hear that he will shave at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks, that lips aren't easily fashioned, that his smile's lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each new operation costs a billion tears, when tears are out of fashion. O, beseech some poet with more skill with words than tears to find some happy ending, to believe that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these are Parables we live, Life's Mysteries... Or look inside his courage, as he ties his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived and smiling says, "It's me I see. Just me." He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures. Your pity is the worst cut he endures. Child of 9-11 by Michael R. Burch a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who was born on September 11, 2001 and died at the age of nine, shot to death... Child of 9-11, beloved, I bring this lily, lay it down here at your feet, and eiderdown, and all soft things, for your gentle spirit. I bring this psalm ? I hope you hear it. Much love I bring ? I lay it down here by your form, which is not you, but what you left this shell-shocked world to help us learn what we must do to save another child like you. Child of 9-11, I know you are not here, but watch, afar from distant stars, where angels rue the vicious things some mortals do. I also watch; I also rue. And so I make this pledge and vow: though I may weep, I will not rest nor will my pen fail heaven's test till guns and wars and hate are banned from every shore, from every land. Child of 9-11, I grieve your tender life, cut short... bereaved, what can I do, but pledge my life to saving lives like yours? Belief in your sweet worth has led me here... I give my all: my pen, this tear, this lily and this eiderdown, and all soft things my heart can bear; I bear them to your final bier, and leave them with my promise, here. For a Sandy Hook Child, with Butterflies by Michael R. Burch Where does the butterfly go when lightning rails, when thunder howls, when hailstones scream, when winter scowls, when nights compound dark frosts with snow... Where does the butterfly go? Where does the rose hide its bloom when night descends oblique and chill beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill? When the only relief's a banked fire's glow, where does the butterfly go? And where shall the spirit flee when life is harsh, too harsh to face, and hope is lost without a trace? Oh, when the light of life runs low, where does the butterfly go? Keywords/Tags: father, fathers, fatherhood, child, son, daughter, grandfather, grandparents, grandchild, grandson, granddaughter, family, families, love, mother