Manflight
My son, now grown,
testing the wind for flight.
Already he has reached my height
and will surpass it.
His feet still too big
to grow into.
His hands great feats of flesh
to mould and caress.
This boy, this child, this man;
I glimpse his soul through the puzzle
of teenage eyes, the half turn of his head
as his boyish grin breaks through.
Then he sets his sights on the future
and soon, too soon, will be gone.
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007