My son, I wish that I could break myself
into the song, the ancient one, that makes
you dance there on the continental shelf.
It rattled in the boy I was, and aches
now from the years. If I was it, not me,
then I would stay this sweet for you and free.
Like you I’ve loved Earth’s gulf-of-mexicos,
its thoraces of bug and throat of frogs,
the landings of the crane, your mother’s toes,
and all the glitz in Adam’s catalogs.
There is a music in it all. Wild, yes,
like voodoo drum, but soft as wedding dress.
But I have seen concurrently the rape
of things all sacred, full, and light. And you,
my son, will see it too. As men who ape
their fathers’ lust and greed can but construe
an earth in which to love is to devour;
an ounce of pain is just a lack of power.
Beware, my son, while dancing to refrain
of breeze, of froth, of bellowed ocean sound.
They may be watching – now – with their disdain
up on the beach – your innocence resound
to fling out what you hear to all your limbs.
Hate them. Do not take them at their grins.
The one who calls the waves to curl and crash,
amid the narrow clang of sex and cash,
calls too this always deeper, widening song.
Listen my son, and dance against the throng.
