I’ve seen quite a few poets read during my time, including Adrienne Rich, and no one blew me away more than Olds. I can still remember that reading and it was almost 20 years ago.

Wow. Touches at the center of one of my favorite reasons our second child went XY, rather than XX.

And nyclel, welcome! Yes indeedy. I read his “On Marriage” at some friends’ wedding, and when I got to the line “Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf,” my homie started snickering uncontrollably. Then her other main gal (we weren’t best men, exactly) started to snicker. Then the blushing bride. It was a debacle. Or a raging success, depending on your vantage point. Loaf. Who knew the innate humor value that word has?

By the way, did you read the recent review of his collected works, by Joan Acocella in the New Yorker? Compelling, and also slightly creepy.

Thought I would add to the discourse about children being borrowed. These poems all come from the words of Kahlil Gibran, who has great philosophies on many aspects of life. Beautiful imagery.

when I sent post kudos to the Peanut earlier, on the occasion of his walking, I almost first included this poem in that post, then deleted it because I thought it was too much “Sunrise, Sunset,” like it’s not my place to make that comment on that occasion, you know?

But since you’re going there in this post, here’s this poem.

Of course, it would be by Sharon Olds.

My Son the Man

Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.

Whether or not she did, thank you.

And Vikki. Deja vu all over again! I wrote that very same line from that very same song at one point in this very same post (at some point in the wee hours, but the line went as fast as it came: lots of convoluted encircling in those wee hours, like Poo and Piglet around that tree (the horrible Heffalumps!). That poem — as rendered by Sweet Honey — is my single most reliable and inspirational parental guide. At the bottom of this post, I stuck both the poem and a link to the Sweet Honey song. Which I have to make even more immediately accessible by sticking here, too: On Children courtesy Ritualwell.org (Music by Ysaye M. Barnwell, © 1980 Barnwell’s Notes Publishing; recorded by Sweet Honey In The Rock®).

Thank you for sharing Miguel’s take on it, which opens up the heart a bit more.