Tag Archives: children

children, fathers, grandchildren, granddaughters, image, lineage, links, love, marriage, photography, poetry

A Joyous Day – Gift of a New Life (8th Lineage Poem)

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A Joyous Day – Gift of a New Life (8th Lineage Poem) Nearly three years ago, this lineage began a new phase with the birth of our granddaughter Sawyer. Honestly, I never expected to care much about grandchildren.

I was wrong!

Born on the cusp of covid, she’s always had a bit of “stranger danger” and, of course, this extended to me – kind of still does. Yet we have our own profoundly goofy relationship founded on funny faces, silly noises and mutual surveillance.

She is brilliant, exceptionally verbal and, of course, beautiful. Her blue eyes are stunning, and her crooked grin is simply beguiling.

(I feel very strongly that it’s not my job to post pictures of her on the internet, but below are two that I feel do preserve her privacy.)

I’ve born witness now to the birth and growth of two sons and a granddaughter, and I still have no idea where these exceptional creatures come from, how their intelligence takes root and blooms.

This is the great mystery and the gift of lineage.

I am forever in love

Sawyer in Sara’s hand, a few hours old

mumuration

her small voice rising 
in the dark above the crib
a morning murmuration beginning
spinning, rising, a flock 
of freshly hatched words 
translucent and damp

where did she come from? 
this spontaneous consciousness 
this ascending double helix 
of intelligence - pulsing, spiraling 
wave upon brilliant wave 
of innate wisdom, elaborating
her sweet song, a spark 

radiating across the endless space
of possibility, coming now
to crack open the darkness like a star 
like the first soft light

of this brand new day

Equally astounding is how quickly a child engages, learns to stand, to walk and to step into a tomorrow of her own.

Sawyer and mom Taylor above Ouray Colorado
hers


after a lifetime 
of insisting on my own importance

here I stand, in the shadows 
watching her

watching her

the clouds roll in
and evening pools in the valley

she takes one step forward
and then another, venturing 

to the very edge of the world 
this world that is now hers 

and hers alone

Here’s a link to more poems about the special creatures that are grandchildren:https://allpoetry.com/poems/about/grandchildren

And here’s a link to the seventh of the Lineage Poems – https://oldbonesnewsnow.com/2022/03/08/shadow-people-when-the-lineage-merges-and-generations-fade/

And a final closing note- young Sawyer’s little brother is due to arrive any day now.

Can’t wait to meet him.

image, photography, poetry

Murmuration – her small voice rising like a brand new day

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her small voice rising - 18 months old, beginning to find her voice, arising spontaneously from space
her innate wisdom, a flock of freshly hatched words, rising

Murmuration

her small voice rising

in the dark above the bars

of the crib, a morning

murmuration

beginning, spinning, rising

a flock of freshly hatched words

still translucent and damp

where did she come from?

this spontaneous consciousness

this ascending double helix

of intelligence – pulsating, spiraling

wave upon brilliant wave

of innate wisdom, elaborating

her sweet song, a spark

radiating across the unending space

of possibility, coming now

to crack open the darkness

like a star

like the first soft light

of a brand new day

© 2021 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com

image, photography, poetry

Steps – this exquisite girl, rising on her tiny toes…

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will rise again on tiny toes
rising on her tiny toes

Steps

our son called this morning

to let us know she’s okay

that it was only a passing fever

a bit of a rash, the hours in the ER

notwithstanding

we kept our cool throughout

my wife and I – seasoned baby vets

unflappable

despite the fact

that the medical folks don’t know a thing

just that the fever has finally

broken

so soon

this exquisite girl

will rise again on tiny toes

and resume her accelerating steps

into tomorrow

while we

will resume our shuffling steps

toward our destined places

at last

as vaguely comic characters

from her dimly remembered

past

© 2021 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com

image, photography, poetry

one sunday morning

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my granddaughter

is not permitted to get sick

I forbid it. her smile

is too crooked and too beautiful

to rest in a fevered face

she’s highly likely, of course

to be just fine

in a day or two, a random

pediatric bug. of course

she will be fine.

so I’ll look to care for my old dog

who isn’t eating this morning

“off his feed”  they say

as happens to us oldsters

every now and again

so I’ll boil up some rice

mix in a little chicken stock

and give us each a bowl.

we can eat together

ever so carefully

in silence

while we wait for the phone to ring.

photography, poetry

the women tell me

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Crab

 

 

the women tell me

there is soon to be a baby.

 

I remember calling my brother

upon the birth of my oldest son.

both of our parents were dead,

and I needed to tell someone — he,

however, seemed unimpressed.

 

I see this son now grown, bearded

and strong, busy planning their lives together,

as if such a thing were possible.

 

I can almost feel the life force drifting

like pollen from our branches to theirs,

calling forth small, green buds, the sap

beginning to rise.

 

the flowering crab in the yard

holds dark, withered fruit fermenting slowly

under a weak winter sun, when a solitary robin,

who should have gone south months ago,

brushes the snow from the branches

and gorges himself on the hard, bitter fruit.

 

eventually, he grows drunk, drops into flight,

and spinning once in midair, flies straight

into the darkened glass of the window,

then drops to the ground like a stone.

 

so many deaths

caused by mistaking reflections

for truth, by confusing images

with the unyielding surfaces of life.

 

the women tell me

there is soon to be a baby.

and we shall welcome her

with indescribable joy. we

will surely be impressed.

 

we will do our best

to hold her safe, to teach her to see.

we will stand with her by the window

and watch the comings and goings of birds.

 

perhaps, she will smile and laugh with the birds.

perhaps, with time, she will come to love

these hollow-boned, fragile,

exquisitely mortal, impossible birds.

 

perhaps, with time,

she might even be the one

who teaches us all how to fly.

 

image, poetry

Home

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This was written for the wedding of my oldest son last month. Life…

reception

 

Home

 

the man on the radio

said children first learn

there are three dimensions-

 

height and width and, of course

length, like a shoebox, or a house.

and only later do they learn

 

of the fourth dimension, time

the one that lends meaning

to all the others – standing here today

 

as we watch you prepare

to begin building your life together

I am acutely conscious of time

 

of how the immediacy of youth

can ripen of its own accord

into patience

 

of how we begin by thinking that love

is something that happens to us

like a bee sting, or an unexpected fall

 

and only later do we see that love

is something organic, that if we’re lucky

is something we might grow

 

to inhabit, like an atmosphere

or more, something that might

come to infuse us, like blood.

 

the older I become, the fewer things

I take to be certain. But some few things

I do know. I know that keeping score

 

is never helpful. I know that love

for one another is cultivated

through an appreciation of small things.

 

I know that even amid the uncertain winds

of this life, in this you might find shelter —

that if you are willing to work together

 

with patience, and with love,

and perhaps with some small measure of grace,

you must certainly succeed

 

in constructing of your lives a home.

 

© 2017 jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com

 

 

 

image, photography, poetry

chilidish things

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 I was walking in a bookstore when the phrase, “we always believed that she could fly” came into my mind, loudly.  That night, a poem arose.  The details are from my mother’s memorial….

 

tombstone, child's grave

detail of weathered tombstone, barnett, VT

 

 

chilidish things 

 

we stood in a circle about the grave

some read poems and some

 

chose silence. the funeral director

placed her ashes into the hole

 

while redwing blackbirds sang

in the fields. we always assumed

 

that she could fly, but then we

were only children, eager to cling

 

to childish things

 

 

 

©jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com

image, poetry, Reflections

My Father

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My father, Allen Medford Fink, died of lung cancer in 1986 at age 72. He was not an easy man. As I explained once to an adult nephew, he was our father, so we wanted to be close to him, but it could be a dangerous place to stand. He taught us to be strong. But as I grow older myself, I can see that if my brother and I are, in our own ways, more gentle, well, he must certainly have given us the seeds of this gentleness as well.

 My father was 42 years old when I was born, so he was dead by the time my sons Patrick and Nathan were born. But his presence remains. In the Buddhist cosmology, the “three times” of past, present and future and not as solid as we ordinarily take them to be. Perhaps this is how I know that if he were to meet my sons today, I am certain he would be amazed. I am certain that he would be most pleased.

My father with me, the baby, and my big brother Joe on the lawn of our small house in Detroit in 1958.

My father with me, the baby, and my big brother Joe on the lawn of our small house in Detroit in 1958.

Written April 2015 in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah —

rains

the wind

is beginning to howl

a late season snow coming in.

by morning, everything

will be blown back

into white.

 

I remember my father

staring out the kitchen window,

massive and simmering,

considering the evening sky.

 

he left the farm just before the war-

came North, but never lost the habit

of weather,

 

of watching the clouds

for signs of impending danger

of flashing from sun into thunder

with no warning.

 

we’re grateful for the snow-

it’s been dry here for too long.

 

redemption can come

through the blessings of rain

of a rain that falls hard all day

of a rain that might protect us

 

from the lightning

from rage without warning

from the flames

t

hat can race up from the valley

and sweep us all away

incinerating everything

 

 

 

©jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com

photography, poetry

visitor

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how strange it feels to return as a guest

to this city where my children were born

to sit above this frozen lake, barely a block

from where she squeezed them into the world.

chicago ice is harder than ice in the mountains

 

all blocks and harsh geometries, the cold indifference

of the city. there’s so much they don’t tell you

about raising a child, like how warm they are

when you hold them as they sleep

how they arrive complete with their own destinies

 

committed to making their own mistakes;

how you’ll touch them less and less as they age

as if you’re both slowly fading into a story

how you’ll watch, helpless, as they suffer

the crushing pains of this embodied human life.

 

beneath the ice, the waves still come, lifting and cracking

the heavy gray plates. one day, they say, spring

will return, but tonight, it’s just the slow rolling

of unseen waters, the lifting and settling of the frozen lake

the slow and brutal grinding of ice upon the shore.

 

 

©jafink/oldbones.newsnow.com