Forbearance

I can’t keep my son
out of a tree.
I can forbid him,
threaten him,
say anything at all,
yet when I go outside
there he is
up there –
with a big smile
on his face.
I could hit him, I know,
and he might obey,
but I don’t have the heart
to do that, remembering,
I, too, once was a boy.


Raleigh (N.C.) Men’s Center Newsletter, January 1997
by Ed Bremson

poetry