(A little Something About My Children)

Seventy-four and just back from the war.
In disillusion I had flown the California coop,
Fled again to my Indiana roots
To pause, to ponder, to marry, to rest, to regroup.

It was part time work on college pay,
Print shops and timothy hay,
And the Midwestern midwives kept circling
Like angels investigating the absence of Spring.

And so two were given birth in winter’s arms,
My daughter and my youngest son.
My eldest boy, the first of three,
To wait for April’s warmth,
Though it took two days
To finally coax him from his mother’s cozy womb.

All to be fine products
Of that Hoosier hardwood heritage;
Enough to make ‘em stoic,
Enough to make ‘em hard-headed and strong.
Each finding their own best destination,
Everything bordering on suburbia, some county line,
Or an endless field of sweet corn.

Lives taking root in dark furrowed soil.
And despite their parents’
Disastrous divorce, while young,
These three would stay the course, as one.

Navigating endless caverns,
Crawling through the depths of
Childhood and adolescence,
By feel and by flashlight’s glow.
Learning to navigate gravel roads
And post-pubescent passion,
Pretty much managing everything,
Parentless and on their own.

Allowing only demons and angels
To catch the fleeting glimpse of fear,
Otherwise allayed by sibling whispers
In the darkest hours of the darkest nights.

Pitted against a sinister grandmother,
Stepmoms and abandonment,
Heartbreak and quiet desperation,
And the occasional long-distance
Parental phone call, satellite to satellite.

Somehow they would learn,
They would learn to survive,
To survive
The conservative political dementia,
The Bible-belt ignorance,
The endless job obstacles,
The mind numbing winters,
And the rednecks living next door.

And somehow they would manage to thrive!

My fearless trio,
Sticking to the southern rolling hills,
Ohio River locks and fossil falls,
Trees ablaze with autumn’s color,
Where all gives rise to the season’s whim;
Dates and graduations,
Mates and wardrobes come and gone,
Then come again.

And before I knew it they were
Putting their own families together,
With guts and glue and their own impossible love;
Setting up homes and hearths for kit and kin.

Always longing to be somewhere familiar,
To be a part of that “normal” family,
Focused solely on a simple vision,
Owning a nice house with a two car garage;
Chasing the American dream.

It is all I might have hoped for, though I never did as much.
To be sure, I too, was Hoosier born
But my roots had never gone down deep enough.

And though I know the past can’t be undone,
I’ve often wished that I had never roamed.
And pray to God that my children’s children
Will always have a Hoosier heart,
And a place that feels like home.



Michael S. True
3-5-14