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.