Chastity

What did you think would happen: once 

you left her unencrypted 

password open to every young turk 

in search of an oasis? Boys, 

being boys, can’t help themselves: 

the urge to go spelunking is simply 

the hereditary condition -- 

too much of an impulse 

to keep from scratching.

While I listened, over a coffee, 

my inclination toward the plain-spoke 

logic of causation denied 

any genuine commiseration. Parenting, 

I felt like spitting, wasn’t a part-time gig 

you committed to every other weekend -- 

but now that the filly was out of the barn,

spilling more milk hardly seemed worth the pleasure 

of going back in time, cashing in my chips:

I didn’t know then, I don’t know now 

what being responsible for a biological bundle entailed. 

While I had my hunches, that’s all 

they were, hunches, hypothetical assumptions 

that 1+1=3 or four five six eventually 

if no wasn’t introduced into the vocabulary at the earliest 

possible point of intervention. God had nothing to do with it.

Indeed, from what I remember from my Sunday school 

excursions, spreading the good word was as much procreation 

as it was holy observation. So I swallowed my sip 

of an I told you so, nodded, knowing 

there was nothing else I could offer up --

but to sit and listen to the rain. 

Ken e Bujold

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

Ah the parenting of girls.

now the filly was out of the barn

I smiled as I went back three generations. To me and my parents, to me and my daughter and now my granddaughter :)) How times have changed.

Enjoyed the read and understood. Hope the rain was short lived Ken.

[Ken e Bujold]

well this was written with a friend in mind, who as the poem suggests was grieved and confused by why his Christian daughter strayed. Years ago, and childless (still am :)) I noted that a parent's job was to parent not be best buddies with the offspring...to which I was told to mind my own business. Now, while the urge to say "I told you so" was there, the reality is that wouldn't have achieved anything, and he needed an ear, so as I metaphorically note, I just sat and listened to the rain

[W. Barrett Munn]

So it’s called rain in Canada. We call it something else down here.

Always a pleasure to read you when your rolling.

Winston