parenting

TO MY SON AS I CONTEMPLATE MY DEATH

Upon my departure grieve not too fiercely, for casting across that spaceless light like Saturn's orbit dimmed by distance, waiting to touch you, I shall be transformed— only that.

After a life answering its call,

fretting over shadows on the cave wall

for vain promises not really desired,

yet with sense enough to pit a middling talent

against majestic goals, a small walk-on part for a better world.

Now to find beyond the dark passage

a world of luminous wonder and joyful comprehension of things you and I pondered when you were scarcely ten years old, surmising that the personality cannot capture the soul,

but the joyful soul remembers the personality.

I'll not hesitate to re-enter

but shall move in another time,

urging your guardians to perfect diligence,

cheering you on from across a mute universe.

Yet grieve a little,

for who knows what deposit of love can survive that distance?

When even the prodigy of your metaphysics and the protective ferocity of a father's heart cannot produce certitude,

when one's composition is immolated by time,

never to recompose, never again these hands, these eyes, a dreadful certitude that creates the pain of doubt.

So I ask you, in your later years,

in a quiet moment,

to keep the memory of our company and our struggle,

and the loyal unfinished love,

each for the other.

Ciao bambino

In the fading cosmic light

two little boys embrace good night.

— Michael Parenti, the last entry in Dirty Truths.