Elegy on a Banished Son
Born 1946
Close falls the seed to gnarled root,
How far it roams. Success was yours
Adventures known and yet untold.
New thoughts, accomplishments and moral
Certainties to rule a life and
Mold the seed that falls in time
Close to a root and nurtured well
Then roams its way to seek the bright,
The fresh, the new, the moral fruits,
To make a life that is not yet
And yet shall live newborn forevermore
In memes and dreams born and yet unborn.
Amid the shifting melodies and paradigms
You were me at yet a younger age,
Far from the creaking wreckage of my age,
Three score less three, the time of hopes
Unrealized, of dreams smashed brutally
Upon the shoals of shrinking time.
You taught the heirs and hope of Yayoi fame,
And wrestled forth with fragile nails of clay
The rhythms and harsh notes of flamenco's
Sharp guitar. And on the day you heard
My song discordant, the karmic result
Of genes and memes ripped harshly from the
Womb of choices made of options fair and foul,
Hands boldly played when dealt by fate so blind
And God unkind, we dueled. We traded slaps
With bloody tongues for swords, an antique
Aztec rite played out on family ground
That tore two hearts still beating from
Two chests, unallayed in freedom bought
From global nets that did not bind but flung
We two apart with silent cavities for hearts.
And having fled with love fair wounded if not
Dead, I banished you from my now absent heart.
You banished me, and stand we still apart,
The gnarled root, the growing seed,
With Grace shall we again with need
From this sad banishment be freed.
DayPoems Poem No. 2602
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2602.html">Elegy on a Banished Son by Timothy Bovee</a>
The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
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