The last child has flown the nest
The emptiness is sudden.
Music has left our home
But also his mess.
To be fair he is now a man
no longer a child
but it seems that just when
Conversations become illuminating and inspiring
Offspring migrate.
Thank God for Skype, email and text
They allow precious connection to continue
vicariously through the virtual world.
How many times do my sons take me by surprise
With their views and insights?
So much more capable in this world, than I.
Better equipped to manage this disintegrating system.
Made of stronger stuff entirely.
I watch them and try to learn from them
much needed survival skills, very late.
I learn humility is appropriate in parenting.
They are not works of art
that I can strut before
explaining their character and meaning.
No, these are independent entities
who have found their own path.
They are of me
but forged in climes and culture
far from my own.
They look at this world differently,
And I have learned to respect their view
is broader and more complete.
I was bred in a tiny village
High in the Sperrin mountains in Northern Ireland.
The road was impossible in winter.
We had one grocery shop
in our one street but over twenty pubs.
There were two communities, Catholic and Protestant.
I examined them both,
like an amateur anthropologist.
Alternatively, amused and angered at their antics.
An outsider whose only connection
With my communities was a deep conviction
That life had to be more than this.
Mean more than this.
I’m grateful for the regular discussions at home
On life, science, religion and the solar system
That swept around our family table.
My mother hated the heated debates
And tried to herd us to more quiet pastures.
But the arguments, the marshalled defences
the cut and thrust, blew like a healthy wind
through our minds.
Making this table of discussion
Not village-sized but of the universe.
Shouting aloud, truth is the only community.
Being alive to everything in this world,
The only antidote to ignorance.
Not knowing is when you’ve
chosen not to see with your own eyes.
This changes what we are.
What we can be.
Everything we will become
Is there in that choice.
To remain like granite what we are now
Or to embrace the person we could be.
The difference between the two
is simply light years apart.
