For Rowan (1978)
Above my child’s bed I stand and stare.
How peaceful, how angelic lying there.
Yet was it not this very night,
Not waiting nor listening to his plightÂ
I swept his reaching arms aside,
All reason gone, my patience tried?
His hands now tucked between his knees and clasped,
What part of my feelings had he grasped?
How soon the boy will be a man,
Yet so much first he needs to understand.
A searching spirit reaching outward from inside
Pleads with me silently to subside.
I’ll try again despite his clamber and rude calls,
All those things that build such solid walls,
To hear with love and cease this fruitless fight,
Remembering the tenderness I feel tonight.
-Doug Garrett