#92 Will You? (Carrie Fountain)

Ayer alguien me hablaba de un libro de Brené Brown, "The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting", y me he acordado del título de otro libro, que tampoco he leído, de Gregorio Luri ,"Elogio de las familias sensatamente imperfectas". Es un gran tema, creo. Para los que están, estamos, pillados de tiempo, a modo de introducción, este poema.

(via)

WILL YOU?

When, at the end, the children wanted 

to add glitter to their valentines, I said no.

I said nope, no, no glitter, and then,

when they started to fuss, I found myself

saying something my brother’s football coach 

used to bark from the sidelines when one

of his players showed signs of being

human: oh come on now, suck it up.

That’s what I said to my children.

Suck what up? my daughter asked,

and, because she is so young, I told her

I didn’t know and never mind, and she took

that for an answer. My children are so young

when I turn off the radio as the news turns

to counting the dead or naming the act,

they aren’t even suspicious. My children

are so young they cannot imagine a world

like the one they live in. Their God is still

a real God, a whole God, a God made wholly 

of actions. And I think they think I work

for that God. And I know they will someday soon

see everything and they will know about

everything and they will no longer take 

never mind for an answer. The valentines

would’ve been better with glitter, and my son

hurt himself on an envelope, and then, much

later, when we were eating dinner, my daughter

realized she’d forgotten one of the three

Henrys in her class. How can there be three Henrys

in one class? I said, and she said, Because there are.

And so, before bed we took everything out

again—paper and pens and stamps and scissors—

and she sat at the table with her freshly washed hair

parted smartly down the middle and wrote

WILL YOU BE MINE, HENRY T.? and she did it

so carefully, I could hardly stand to watch.