Don't Make a Fuss
They said.
So we were told and conditioned.
Drama was anathema.
Stiff upper lips and all that:
being on time, not interrupting,
counting ten before speaking,
Avaunt any vulgar, celebrity show.
Still,
ego and pride found a way through.
Me first. I want - my will.
The puppy scrabble for priority,
for being seen -
if not competing for sustenance or privilege.
Love albeit implicit was unspoken:
to the point the kiddies might not ever know what it was.
Fear, albeit implicit too, had no face.
Survival was the key.
What felt safe.
Keeping a low profile - no fuss
equated with necessity, if not virtue;
the world being full of danger.
The young, ignorant if not innocent
- at risk, a liability
what with all that vibrant energy,
even raw beauty and scary potential
for adventure, brilliance, scandal, harm.
Thus, lifelong - imprinted, shaped and bent, inside and out
as poor little bonzoi roots, pared from the start:
like cultural practices that bound feet, elongated skulls,
imposed bias on gender or aptitude.
A hawthorn, weathered and worn down by the westerlies,
leaning, drunken towards the light
or from mineral loss.
Bearing in mind animal parenting -
the wolf that nips it’s pup,
for respect of hierarchy,
felines, teaching their babes to stalk
and the conscientious role-modeling of birds.
So we were eugenically shaped;
modified, specialized, predisposed
as surely as anything genetically engineered
as parents, the society - or media
believed, feared and preferred.
Hence, till our dying day, we’re left with the legacy
of needing to recognize, dismantle then mend and heal
those deformities and abrogations
of the divine original.
To restore and learn to honour it
with humble love and gratitude.
At last.
Feb