For D.B.K

My younger son grew up a country-length
Away, but spent his summers here with us.
One year, caught teaching abroad, we, on strength
Of friendship, asked, ”Would it be too much fuss

For you to pick up Dan, board him a week
While we wended home through Kabul, Delhi,
Tokyo?”  Pleasantly, our friends agreed.
When we arrived, those good folks asked if we

Understood how well our Dan had mastered
The keyboard?  Bemused, we thought, with brows creased,
At thirteen, he’d manage some halting craft,
Some three chord pops, or maybe Fur Elyse.

We listened, overwhelmed, and almost freaked
As he banged out Beethoven’s Pathetique
                                            (3/10/07)

   For D.J.K.
                             I

My older son, spawn of academics,
Bore, no doubt, an extra burden—parents
Enthralled by education, splenetic
At anything less than best.  Tough to fare

Well in such a household.  One day I drove
Past his schoolyard.  The children screamed about
As children do, but he sat by himself
Halfway up the monkey bars, thus flouting

All the learnéd theorists.  My heart hurt
To see him there, alone.  I told myself
That differing was good, a child with quirks,
Superior to the herd, glowed with wealth

Of character.  That thought allayed my fears,
But, somehow, could not stop my sudden tears.
                                                     (2/21/07) 

                                  II

Three days of silence followed this dredged mem-
ory.  Then his reply revealed the cracks
In such stark shards—recalled his many friends:
“Ed and Charlie, my best school yard buds back

Then, not to mention that weirdo kid we
Hung out with most days, while we imagined
[He recalled], in the linked interstices
Of our school yard fence, strange, new, magical

Alien worlds.  And how could you forget
My well-regarded prowess at sockball?
How could you forget that, despite the stress
Of parental demands, I was, next Fall,

Elected President (despite your aches!)
Of 6^th grade Student Council for chrissakes!”
                               (3/3/07)

                                   III

 “On the other hand,” as some wag once ob-
served, “the fingers are different.”  David’s
In particular.  In those days, we fobbed
Him off on a nanny—the jobs we craved

Consumed us.  And when he caught the mumps, we
Bought, to divert him from his fevered brow
And swollen neck, a phono record.  How
He loved it—Alvin and the Chipmunks—he

Listened incessantly!  He was just four;
He learned the words; he sucked that music in.
Though unused, we had a piano then,
And, one day, as we entered through our door,

We heard him playing “Alvin’s Song”—at four!
Stunned, widened, shining eyes displayed our awe.
                                   (3/2/07)