How?
how do I learn
where does patience come from
when “It’s not fair” for the fiftieth time
after a special-made breakfast
made under the moonlight
after a day of rushing
and time is always tight
because I was late for work — again —
after we say “Sorry — the money is spent”
on baseball and brand new cleats
no dollars for a bracelet from China
after making Lego past bedtime
and my wife waits for a kiss
and I delay writing another rhyme?

How?
how do I study
when tears fill my eyes
“I hate you”
when I pour peroxide on an arm
tears fill his eyes
when he rides a wobbly bike
for the first time
when he can’t subtract
and tears sheets in his class
when we bake cookies
and lick the spoons
can taste ginger three ways
and stare at a blood moon
then slam the door
because bed time
came too soon?

How?
how do I teach
when I never learned
what I watched was fumbling
torn from Dr Spock
instead filled with silence for hours
of Mr Spock
alienation vs alien nation
a language imitated
imagined initiated
writ in actions and words
of purchase
time not counted
and hugs and kisses spent
what’s enough
when guilt is still
a perpetual feeling
for not being
a pro?

How?
how do I meditate
on being a father
of a boy
arrived at three
an imported dowry
of our marriage
and cry for fear
my heart is not clear
that tears are not enough
to nurture
so I bark
and I command
and hold sacred my mission
tight
with precision
How —
do I find calm
in a storm
when I get one
chance
and love blows
like kisses
across the playground
when everyone’s around
and doubt seeds my
every
day
and I worry
that love
grows too slow
and will
he
i
be
a good man —
How?

∞

Submitted as part of “National/Global Poetry Writing Month” (#NaPoWriMo #GloPoWriMo).
Today’s prompt: Today, I’d like to challenge you to blend these concepts into your own work, by producing a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try including a dramatic, declarative statement, like Hass’s “All the new thinking is about loss,” or O’Hara’s “It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.” Or, like, Baudelaire, you might try addressing your feeling directly, as if it were a person you could talk to. There are as many approaches to this as there are poets, and poems.