Caren Krutsinger Poet Narrative

There Are Rules

There are rules she said.
Let’s break them, said I.
She was horrified, shocked,
A military woman, due or die.
 
We cannot she admonished me.
It’s the way it has to be.
I was horrified and shocked,
She was my daughter, only three.
 
We have to color in the lines,
She, prim and proper, said.
So I showed her how to color on the walls,
And introduced her to her cousin Fred.
 
Fred was not military,
He knew how to be a kid and have fun.
He showed her how to laugh and play,
Hang out of treehouses, and to run.
 
She was horrified and shocked,
This military girl of mine.
She grew up and joined the Air Force.
She recognized her own kind.
 
Fred is in prison now,
Making license plates for me.
My daughter is a Captain,
At the age of twenty-three
 
So I guess the rules she does like.
She follows them for a reason.
She follows them up hills and down.
She follows them in every season.
 
This has to be something internal,
For she is my child, and very bright.
She is a beautiful woman, in other ways,
But she is totally black and white.
 
There is no gray in her world,
And rules she could never break.
She is my oldest, and had this down pat
Before she was even eight.
 
She was three the day she told me
That rules cannot be broken.
I write this poem in her honor,
Words that can barely be spoken.
 
The Air Force had her,
Before any of us could have ever known.
She was totally into rules
And this was completely not home-grown.
 
Her two sisters live in color,
And understand that life is often gray,
But she lives in a rule-oriented society
Where things are right or wrong, no play.
 
I live in colors – yellows, pinks, and orange.
I live to break rules, in case you did not know
How I raised a daughter to be military
I truly will never ever know.

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Arturo Michael March 31, 2019 at 11:09 AM Good one...a little bit of you must be in her somewhere...She definitely uses the system to her advantage... Caren Krutsinger March 31, 2019 at 4:12 PM Well, yes, Arturo, I did teach all three of my children to be survivors, and they are all doing well in that department.

Panagiota Romios March 30, 2019 at 6:44 PM Enjoyed this one about your daughter! You and I are rule breakers... Our daughters? No. Delightful women, both. As are we, Caren Panagiota Caren Krutsinger March 30, 2019 at 9:35 PM I know it is weird, that we have somehow raised the rule-followers. How does that HAPPEN?

M. L. Kiser March 29, 2019 at 9:30 PM That is the personality type that can do well in the military but, they do miss many wonders. Kids, have a tendency, to tell you how to color anyway. My great niece always told me how but,she grew up to be a K5 teacher. Caren Krutsinger March 30, 2019 at 4:22 AM My daughter is a federal employee, working at a federal building, she was a captain in the Air Force - military from the get-go. No idea how; the only explanation I have is reincarnation? This had to be a carry-over from a different lifetime.

Heidi Sands March 29, 2019 at 1:58 PM Interesting Caren. I enjoyed this :) Caren Krutsinger March 29, 2019 at 2:54 PM Thank you Heidi.

Rico Leffanta March 29, 2019 at 1:55 PM Having lived all around this world, when my son was born I looked into his eyes and saw an intelligent person unable to speak the language. His kindergarten teachers thought his parents must be astronomers or paleontologists because he knew all the constellations, dinosaurs, etc., and were surprised to find we knew nothing of the sort which, I think, establishes our children led interesting lives before this one! Aloha! Rico Caren Krutsinger March 29, 2019 at 2:54 PM I wholeheartedly agree, Rico!