We were standing by the rented minivan that we’d just
unloaded into my freshman dorm room.
We’d carried boxes and posters, suitcases and colorful wall hangings
All the parental figures there (were there 3 or 4?) were due to make their exit.
My father put his hand on my shoulder and began to speak
This speech to me.
I laughed.
I recognized it right away –
“Isn’t that funny that my father just said a line from Hamlet for his parting words”
But he kept going
while my mother and I laughed
he pushed through
line after line
imparting Polonius’ parting advice
to me
in all sincerity.
When he’d finished, I hugged him
probably through tears, though I don’t recall the tears.
I thought perhaps he’d memorized this speech in college or something and had retained it all these years
But no,
He’d learned it specifically for this occasion.
He sat down with Hamlet on his lap
And learned every line of this advice
Til he could say it like
It was his
Like this was his advice
Like he could pull advice from 400 years ago and impart it
To me. I still feel it like a blessing.

Impatiently sitting in the sail’s shoulder, the wind checks its watch.
Checking the urge to push the shoulder to the wheel
And urge the boat on into the calm of the sea.
Puffing and straining at the seams
Like a dog on a leash with a squirrel making an escape right before its very eyes.
When nature’s push meets the timetable of people
Someone is always bridled.

Get on board
On the bus
On the plane
On the train.
For shame
To have waited so long
Watching your feet grow roots
And shoot further into the floor
And into the earth.
Get on board now
It’s time to go
The waiting has passed.
It’s time to fly
And join the travelers.

Haven’t you left yet?
Haven’t you pulled your feet up out of the mud
Shaken them free of the sucking ground
And moved?
From the outside
It’s all so clear
That movement is all that is required.
But inside
It is more than the mud that keeps him standing there. There are pulls from everywhere.
From gravity
From desire
From history
From heaven
From the liver
From the wrist
Pulled in every direction
You cannot move to them all.

Sometimes growing up is only this
Learning how to give space to he who needs it.
In earlier days, I might have held tight or
Walked along the same path, the very same path
Or rather, the brush and rocks and thorns beside it
Letting you go but not giving you leave
When the time machine dumps me out in front of my younger self,
I’ll quote this line.

A garment
Drenched
Below it
Pools of water
Of effort
A slow drip
wrung from above.