This is one of the Types of Poetry. An Ode to my "other" children - the words I birth onto the page. Types of Poetry
My Children
by
Richard A. McCullough
My words are my children whose names I murmur in the late hours of the night.
I feel the pain and frustration of birthing them onto each page, of grooming and nurturing them as best I know how; both anticipating and dreading the day they might be strong enough to walk out into the world under the power of their own metaphors - away from me forever.
Will these children of mine evoke laughter or praise? Will their voice ring true with nouns and verbs marching proudly across the published page to assume a life of their own or will they come back home through some postal passage, with hopes canceled, all dog-eared and scuffed, to sit on the corner of my desk, participles dangling, with their failure stuffed in manila brown pockets?
But as frustrating and hopeless as it seems, from time to time, I can never forsake them. They are flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood and though I might cry for their shortcomings I can never disown them - for they are my children.
The one hope that keeps me laboring is the chance that someday I might yet experience their triumph; the flame of understanding kindled in the eye of a stranger. Upon that hope I feed and nurture them that they might yet live and walk and breath and somehow touch a life, and scatter the seeds of my waking dreams into a tomorrow that I will never know.
Grow strong and brave my children, walk tall upon the page - for without you I have nothing and leave no sign of ever having passed this way.
