A Poem for my Children

A Poem for My Children
I am not sure how well
I fathered you; only
you can tell, and I
am scared to ask.

While you grew
we played the hide
and seek of spring,
and tucking you to bed
I glimpsed the gloom
and glow of your dreams,
voyaging the seas
of juvenescence that
are always navigated before
the charts are written.

At Christmas I was
Santa, you mistook
me for the crimson king,
kissing me with innocent
lips, eyes shining before
the Herod of adulthood
carried off your infancy.

I waged the grown-up war
only to make you the casualties.
For that and many other failings
as a father, je suis désolé.
In recompense and to offset
my faults, I want you to
hear how the world has
made itself known to me.

Life will not present itself
to you like low-hanging
fruit in easy orchards.
Sadly others will get
the applause as you stand
in the wings and watch,
but trust me, plaudits
are a masquerade.

Your life is within,
a fine filament
that arises in your
given soul. This is the
place the great tales
speak of; where
the tenderness of your
regrets will beckon
to a desperate crossing
and a dark doorway.

Then you,
like Theseus,
will find that to face a
minotaur you follow
that glimmering strand
to the wounded bird
of your vulnerability
laying between his
subtle hooves.

In that meeting
the monster will
be your teacher,
unveiling in you
the unquenchable
font of life.

From ‘The Call of the Unwritten’ Adrian G R Scott