Chris Youngblood March 7, 2025
This is not part of the ongoing poetry, this is different.
Signs everywhere, cracks pouring light in.
When manifestation takes place, collapse and build.
Driving to the University Seminar,
Son mentions it’s near the place I will be volunteering this week.
He had no idea, as he has none for what lies in front of him.
The pain of a parent, walking parallel to his fork in the road.
Choices, choices, choices.
They come on constantly.
Change as I see him understanding the coming of the end of a 12 year cycle.
Standing at the business school table while the nice enough college student female yaps triumphantly about majors, double minors and the joys of accounting. She’s good.
It really is sweet that she’s so excited about accounting when she’s not doing it for ions and ions. Honestly with her sales skills, she’ll probably go right into pharmaceuticals. I mean, they pay so well, why not?
I laugh inside, but make no mistake, it is a dark laugh.
I used to cackle at the riduculousness of it all.
The unconscious “falling in” of it all.
Not anymore though.
I see a room of potential and it makes me sad.
I see the future and sometimes I wish I didn’t care so much.
If only the shadow of a pied piper could light the flame and lead them out into the night. Stare at the stars and leave this hotel.
Plans, plans, plans.
I can only offer my perspective, I watered the seed, fertilized the ground.
Torn between what he knows and what must be done; for now.
Torn between a mother and father’s worldview; I do not envy the fork in the road, nor do I have the energy to walk with him. I have my own; which is the biggest trip of it all.
But oh, how I honor his path.
One day I will thank him properly for the strength he showed in those two years. It was the light load I didn’t know I needed.
At the volunteering event a few days later, down the road (figuratively and literally) from the university seminar, formerly homeless, come back to their dignity. Thank those who helped them get back on their feet, healed them.
It calls.
Authenticity.
Telos. Is it possible?
Can the healed become the healer?
What was once, bleeds into what is now. What was innocent, has aged. What was an energy, has materialized.
As I remember when i first held him, the second body kicks within the womb.
Kicking so hard.
I love this strange life.
I fought so hard for it.
The intermission is over.
It’s 7:11.