Parenthood

Having becoming a father again in April (which explains the lack of activity on this blog in the last 3 months), I thought I would post this marvellous poem by the Australian poet Geoffrey Lehmann, a beautifully balanced tribute to the joys and frustrations of parenthood (love the wry twist on the opening line of Howl at the beginning). This is for all the mothers and fathers of young children out there, as a comical celebration of the enormously demanding yet immensely rewarding work we all do:

PARENTHOOD

I have held what I hoped would become the best minds of a generation

Over the gutter outside an Italian coffee shop watching the small

Warm urine splatter on the asphalt – impatient to rejoin

An almond torta and a cappuccino at a formica table.

I have been a single parent with three children at a Chinese restaurant

The eldest five years old and each in turn demanding

My company as they fussed in toilets and my pork saté went cold.

They rarely went all at once; each child required an individual

Moment of inspiration – and when their toilet pilgrimage was ended

I have tried to eat the remnants of my meal with twisting children

Beneath the table, screaming and grabbing in a scrimmage.

I have been wiping clean the fold between young buttocks as a pizza

I hoped to finish was cleared from a red and white checked table cloth.

I have been pouring wine for women I was hoping to impress

When a daughter ran for help through guests urgently holding out

Her gift, a potty, which I took with the same courtesy

As she gave it, grateful to dispose of its contents so simply

In a flurry of water released by the pushing of a button.

I have been butted by heads which have told me to go away and I have done so,

My mouth has been wrenched by small hands wanting to reach down to my tonsils

As I lay in bed on Sunday mornings and the sun shone through the slats

Of dusty blinds. I have helpfully carried dilly-dalliers up steps

Who indignantly ran straight down and walked up by themselves.

My arms have become exhausted, bouncing young animals until they fell asleep

In my lap listening to Buxtehude. ‘Too cold,’ I have been told,

As I handed a piece of fruit from the refrigerator, and for weeks had to warm

Refrigerated apples in the microwave so milk teeth cutting green

Carbohydrate did not chill. I have pleasurably smacked small bottoms

Which have climbed up and arched themselves on my lap wanting the report

And tingle of my palm. I have known large round heads that bumped

And rubbed themselves against my forehead, and affectionate noses

That loved to displace inconvenient snot from themselves onto me.

The demands of their bodies have taken me to unfamiliar geographies.

I have explored the white tiles and stainless steel benches of restaurants kitchens

And guided short legs across rinsed floors smelling of detergent

Past men in white with heads lowered and cleavers dissecting and assembling

Mounds of sparkling pink flesh – and located the remote dark shrine

Of a toilet behind boxes of coarse green vegetables and long white radishes.

I have badgered half-asleep children along backstreets at night, carrying

Whom I could to my van. I have stumbled with them sleeping in my arms

Up concrete steps on winter nights after eating in Greek restaurants,

Counting each body, then slamming the door of my van and taking

My own body, the last of my tasks, to a cold bed free of arguments.

I have lived in the extreme latitudes of child rearing, the blizzard

Of the temper tantrum and my own not always wise or honourable response,

The midnight sun of the child calling for attention late at night,

And have longed for the white courtyards and mediterranean calm of middle age.

Now these small bodies are becoming civilised people claiming they are not

Ashamed of a parent’s overgrown garden and unpainted ceilings

Which a new arrival, with an infant’s forthrightness, complains are ‘old’.

And the father of this tribe sleeps in a bed which is warm with arguments.

Their bones elongate and put on weight and they draw away into space.

Their faces lengthen with responsibility and their own concerns.

I could clutch as they recede and fret for the push of miniature persons.

And claim them as children of my flesh – but my own body is where I must live.