ANYTHING THEY WANT TO BE

I Love You

My children turn me into butterflies with their magic wands

but you think I should be palpable and mute as a globed fruit.

They listen to the words I speak, acquainted with my dialect,

my half-finished sentences, my rantings and ravings and penitence

but you,

you prefer me dumb, silent as the stone where moss has grown.

Mossy stones are hard to grasp-

We collect rocks from places where the sun has shone.

And still you go on, insisting I be wordless as a flight of birds.

You say I should be motionless in time, but I can tell

you've never climbed after children reaching for the moon

nor comforted them when it vanished in the fog

you've probably never searched twig by twig for a lost pet frog;

or endured the separation of a first day of school

you are more interested in setting rules.

You say I should be equal to. In case no one ever told you,

it's more important to be yourself, to find those inner truths.

Your list of "shoulds" writes a history of grief

for those who take you at your word, they flutter

like a maple leaf, shatter like an egg dropped upon the floor.

I teach my children to question, to compare

to draw their own conclusions, to write on air.

They know the family history

They can be anything they want to be.

LJ Austin

Written many years ago, after reading Ars Poetica (Archibald MacLeish)

Photo: Relyea, Charles M., Artist. The Birthday Party in the Woods. , 1898. [?] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2010717549/.