Life for My Child is Simple and is Good

Gwendolyn Brooks

(1917-2000)

Life for My Child is Simple and Good

Life for my child is simple and is good. He knows his wish. Yes, but that is not all. Because I know mine too. And we both want joy of undeep and unabiding things, Like Kicking over a chair or throwing blocks out of a window Or tipping over an icebox pan Or snatching down curtains or fingering an electric outlet Or a journey or a friend or an illegal kiss. No. There is more to it than that. It is that he has never been afraid. Rather, he reaches out and lo the chair falls with a beautiful crash And the blocks fall, down on the people’s heads, And the water comes sloshing sloopily out across the floor. And so forth. Not that success, for him, is sure, infallible. But never has he been afraid to reach. His lesions are legion. But reaching is his rule.

Another poem brought to my attention by my literate wife, Geralyn Marie. It was read at our son’s baptism and conveys every parent’s hope that their child will be unafraid to try things even at the cost of a few bumps (lesions) along the way.

I think the jury is in for our son, as he is a very able person who leans into new experiences. Now, almost thirty years after his birth, I work in a place where the pictures of my co-worker’s children have spilled off the refrigerator and onto an adjacent wall. It is a joyful collection of swaddled newborns, costumed Halloweeners, and looking-right-at-you smiles of toddlers. So, like a graffiti artist, I just stuck this poem on the refrigerator near the handle where it might be seen.