![a young boy looking ahead, his face partially covered by the glare of the sun](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/8nAkcwf74EtIuyw6_AEjRIiIvBI=/0x0:2160x2700/648x810/media/img/2023/09/16/poem_sons/original.jpg)
All our lovely sons at the playground
operating in brilliant colours, their prime, brilliant voices ringing out.
Now the slides, now mountain climbing, now jumping from swings.
They’re wonder-struck on the sight of
a inexperienced maple tree spilling its magic,
waving its palms at blue sky. They’re so little, the language
of violence hasn’t but entered them.
Older boys haven’t but taught them the best way to be merciless.
They contact the arena with small palms
and are overjoyed—a xylophone bell
ringing a rainbow of seems like concentric circles
forged via a pebble at the floor of a lake.
It’s past due afternoon. We sign up for the shadows of different moms,
pushing our swinging kids.
Little parabolas. They cross upper and better
into what turns out an never-ending sky.
The giant shadows thrown via our our bodies
are us however no longer us,
like silhouettes of girls shifting in the back of white sheets
on a clothesline.
And now this night time ahead of the solstice,
swinging our sons
and the shadows of our sons
suspended in midair.
We personal not anything, no longer even our personal shadows,
tethered as we’re to time.
for Catharine