Poetry – Page 3 – Achilles & Aristotle

Glad to be Dad

The kids are getting older
And a little wiser.
But not much.

Bigger limbed,
Larger but still largely children
Both in impulse and action.

I see younger Dads,
Babes in arms,
Pushchairs and scooters.

I’m through that now.
Less needed for physical support,
More for moral.

The seasons change,
And the ask
But I’m always glad to be Dad.

Walking about a cafe-lined street – waiting for my boy to finish his latest activity – I notice lots of younger dads. Some tired faces, lots of kit and caboodle; prams, scooters and constant distraction and vigilance for trips, tears and tantrums.

Phew, I’m glad we’re through that. So far through it, that I’ve rejoined the adult majority – mildly irritated a set of young parents couldn’t stop their toddler screaming – as me and the boy ate a breakfast muffin. Shame on me.

The ‘ask’ is changing. Not physically fetching and carrying but constantly ferrying and permanently travelling: to netball, skating, rugby, dance and school fêtes and events. And there’s a growing need for encouragement and some tough love, in enforcing ‘sticking at’ stuff.

The job is changing with the seasons but there’s no need to be sad. There’s plenty of demand for Dad.

Children, Life, Poetry

Petit Prince

After darkness comes the light. Bath time, a happy face under a towel, a hug, a chat and a cuddle.

There is no sweeter, kinder more caring and thoughtful boy in the whole wide world than this one…

My saving grace,
His smiling face.
He asks if I could be king?
As he fancies himself a prince.

“But you’d have to share the food,
Not be a greedy guts…”
Unlike his cheeky sister this e’en.
We’d all live very well, ruled by
The kindest boy in all the world.

Death, Life, Poetry, Work

Darkness

What a spectacularly rubbish week. The kind of week which makes you almost believe there are Greek gods toying with your life.

No-one died, no one got hurt, but the needless jostling of egos and the triumph of the selfish over the selfless leaves me flat as a pancake. Awful.

Clive James explains, forewarns and laments a good deal of what has driven my week in his poem Leçons des ténèbres:

But are they lessons, all these things I learn
Through being so far gone in my decline?
The wages of experience I earn
Would service well a younger life than mine.
I should have been more kind. It is my fate
To find this out, but find it out too late.

The mirror holds the ruins of my face
Roughly together, thus reminding me
I should have played it straight in every case,
Not just when forced to. Far too casually
I broke faith when it suited me, and here
I am alone, and now the end is near.

All of my life I put my labour first.
I made my mark, but left no time between
The things achieved, so, at my heedless worst,
With no life, there was nothing I could mean.
But now I have slowed down. I breathe the air
As if there were not much more of it there

And write these poems, which are funeral songs
That have been taught to me by vanished time:
Not only to enumerate my wrongs
But to pay homage to the late sublime
That comes with seeing how the years have brought
A fitting end, if not the one I sought.

I should have been more kind. It is my fate
To find this out, but find it out too late.

I hope that a time will come when those who have made my week so dire come to contemplate alone the ruins of their faces – and might come to wish they’d also played it straighter in more cases and not just when forced to.

Faith has indeed been broken far too casually. My challenge is not to lessen myself in how I respond.

Life, Poetry, Psychology

Irrelevant Complexity 1) – Odd Jobs

‘Relevant complexity’ is my theory of everything: satisfaction and joy arise from the pursuit of complex, worthwhile and comparatively challenging pursuits.

Art history, particle physics, the raising of children, the preparation and enjoyment of good food etc etc – all relevantly complex.

You need to learn, improve, occasionally triumph – and sometimes feel you actually know almost nothing – to achieve the satisfaction of mastering relevant complexity with a good degree of skill.

Then there are hobbies. Same effect Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow’ – as one become adept or expert but some risks: becoming a bore or solitary obsessive. I have achieved ‘flow’ by hoovering well, even cleaning a fridge. But these are not monuments to my life’s work or relevantly complex pursuits I’d want defining who I am.

What’s in? An eclectic and erratic list: cooking, relevant; gardening, chore. Writing, relevant; drawing embarrassment. Cleaning the fish tank, chore (and only tolerable if I’m left to do it properly) odd jobs, drilling and hanging things source of great irritation and angst. Why?

Because it’s hard to get odd jobs right. Our walls are rubbish, you only ever do a thing once – so you make maximum mistakes, never get the chance to practice what you’ve learned. And the smallest thing can take disproportionate time for a disappointing effect; which then stares down at you in reproach for years. Aaargh. Irrelevant complexity.

My latest botched odd job stares down at me here:

Curtain derailed
DIY failed
Drooping drapes
In awkward shapes
Lots of screws
And hacksaw blades
Variety of fixings
Wobbling and fiddling
Scarcely blocking the sky
Humble pie.

But every cloud has a silver lining. After three separate wasted days on and off up ladders, with hacksaws, at the DIY shop, I definitively gave up in a huff on our lounge curtains.

Then a miracle intervened. My beloved took to the ladders, took up the drill and made it all hang together. Perhaps she found it satisfying enough that she might become Oddjob now… Fingers crossed.

Children, Life, Odysseus, Poetry

Hmmm

Half me, half her.
Qualities mine, faults hers.
Hmmm.
Some things about him aren’t either of us?

Ok.
Quarter her folks, quarter mine.
Makes sense.
Hang on a bit,
Her folks aren’t all bad.
Some of his qualities might be theirs?

Ok.
One eighth my paternal grandparents,
One eighth my my mum’s parents
Hmmm.
Right old mix there.

The truth dawns.
He’s not half me, half her.
He’s one hundred percent him.
Unique.
A joy.
A beam of sunlight in our lives.
But his talents and shortcomings are all his own.

Mixed results for the boy at school this week. Some parental adjustment and effort required. But the big penny which is dropping, is letting go of the ‘me’ in him and truly embracing him.

Not hard – he is wonderful. But he is ‘he’, not a mini me.