Tom Shaff
USA

children
 
our children
connect us
through them we
learn who we are.
 
they are all we aspire to be,
having heard our inner cries
rants and suffer our limits.
 
what gifts have they received?
 
they bleed and we cry,
they march off and we clutch our hands.
we let them go
but never give them up.
 
every combination of we
they are.
every fault they magnify,
all contradictions they resolve
with new ones of their own
and so we almost know them
and they never know us.