---- i would choose my parents

i have that luxury

if they failed me they did so with innocence and honestly

if i could choose my founding forefathers?

I now know what to say

When asked why sociology 

It isn't to explain gender and women's studies

I am continuing 

I am formalizing

The post graduate studies in humanities 

That my father started when I was born

From the collective pain

Of people trying to make salt

I gained life altering perspective 

The goal was just to experience a different culture

I am seeking

A life altering experience 

The goal to shift from mere observation 

To action

Collective

Shared experience 

If ever asked

The assumption is cash

I’ll know what to say

My mother showed me

Through expressions of textile geometry 

That engineering is in my DNA

Computers as a career 

Because I am my mother’s son

No poet

I am my parents child

A poor reflection

I am alive

Because

They communicate 

With me as an equal

To live is to express the greatest of poetry

Have you ever written your parents a poem?

I hope it was a love poem

Not a letter with painful questions 

Have you ever written your children a poem

A love poem for sure

Maybe with some apology 

From the stump

My reflection weeps

Into a pool

My parents have given me so much

The gift of life long learning

And the space to fail

The gift of perpetual childhood

I owe to my then

Giving in action is the lesson of my fathers life

Perseverance, the strength to carry on is the lesson of my mothers life

I hope I am the tree

But fear i am the old man

Realizing too late my weaknesses