A Poem for My Children, by Adrian G R Scott

I am not sure how well
I fathered you; only
you can tell, and I
am scared to ask.

As you grew
we played the hide
and seek of spring,
tucking you to bed
I glimpsed gloom
and glow in your dreams,
and we voyaged the seas
of juvenescence that
are always sailed before
the maps can be made.

At Christmas I was
Santa, you mistook
me for the crimson king,
kissing me with innocent
lips, eyes shining before
the Herod of adulthood
carried off your infancy.

I waged the grown-up war
only to make you casualties.
For that and many other failings
as a father, je suis désolé. 

In recompense and to offset
my faults, I want you to
know how the world has
made itself known to me.

Life will not present itself
to you like low-hanging
fruit in easy orchards.
Sadly others will get
the applause as you stand
in the wings and watch,
but trust me, plaudits
are a masquerade.

Your life is within,
a fine filament
that arises in your
given soul. This is the
place the great tales
speak of; where
the tenderness of your
regrets will beckon
to a desperate crossing
and a dark doorway.

Then you,
like Theseus,
will find that to face a
minotaur you follow
that glimmering strand
to the wounded bird
of your vulnerability
laying between his
subtle hooves.

In that meeting
the monster will
be your teacher,
unveiling in you
the unquenchable
font of life.

Then you will never
have to ask a stranger
to tell you who you are;
you will have stepped
onto your spot-lit mark,
and the soft memory
of my voice will
be your prompt. 

From The Call of the Unwritten, Adrian G R Scott, ISBN 978-1-4461-3806-9.

Emmaus, by Adrian G R Scott

This is a beautiful poem about companionship by my friend Adrian Scott from his collection The Call of the Unwritten (see the Books Worth Reading section of this website).

Emmaus

Take a long unhurried walk
with a willing other,

keep a measured silence as your four
feet trudge the miles,

honour the sparse and common space
that shrewdly shapes between you,

narrate in quietness the chronicle of your living
with all its broken light,

do not spare the brittle self in your
honestly forming story,

nor judge the wounded self that wants
to nestle in your arms,

or any of the legion selves that emerge
as you summon them,

be gentle with your broken hopes
and kind to your successes,

with respect hear the restive steps
of this re-collecting journey,

recognize the natural, animate around you
life echoing your own,

then breach the generosity of solitude
with a welcome to the wanderer,

take turns in pathway sharing, break
out your spoken story,

be heedful as a deep-barked forest
to every breaking twig,

frame each exposure with the
intentness of a lens,

stop and face each other with a
bold unwavering gaze,

see the walking miles reflected
in the pupil of the other,

and by embracing what remains, you
will have reached Emmaus.