For poetry lovers: somes thoughts on raising children

morningstar

Thu, Mar 23 2006, 4:10 pm

Just wanted to share this deeply evocative poem about a mother and daughter...

Offspring
by Naomi Long Madgett

I tried to tell her:
This way the twig is bent.
Born of my trunk and strengthened by my roots,
You must stretch newgrown branches
Closer to the sun
Than I can reach.
I wanted to say:
Extend my self to that far atmosphere
Only my dreams allow.

But the twig broke
And yesterday I saw her
Walking down an unfamiliar street,
Feet confident,
Face slanted upward toward a threatening sky,
And
She was smiling
And she was
Her very free,
Her very individual,
Unpliable
Own.

Mirichka

Fri, May 19 2006, 8:26 am

This is one of my favorites. By Khalil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said,
- Speak to us of children!

And he said:
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.