29 July 2007

Growing Up

Rick Watson's blog (Life 101) yesterday struck a chord with me. I remember being a thorn in my parents' sides when I was growing up. I had written a poem a few years ago that hints at it, so decided to share it:

Our Triumph
by Robert H. Miller

Sometimes there are
When the moon is low overhead
And stars begin to almost-shine
That I walk paths
Grown over with the brambles
And tangle
Of cob-web clouded thoughts
Down forgotten vignettes
That played themselves out
So many ages ago
Yet flash and flutter
For encore after encore
In the blink of a thought.

It has been a long way coming to Now.

For the first part,
They led us by the hand.
But we wore them out
Keeping us from the waste-land on either side.

Then they were content to watch
And call a warning
When a bramble would catch and tear,
And the hurt became alone.
Guided only by the shrugging shoulders of inexperience,
We bled,
And broke ourselves on boulders
Suddenly thrust up by fate’s fantasy.

Garments rent, bleeding, blistered,
Yet erect we stand
Proudly viewing this, our triumph -
To have made our individual paths
To Now.

What Tomorrows lie in ambush
That we have not stood up to
And beaten down
Today?
Strengthened and encouraged,
We look at moon and stars and Future
And slip on sandals
For the grassy plain ahead.

09 Jan 1963

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