family, letting go and holding

 

dispersal and return

family, at its best,

is of both dispersal and return,

parenting, like teaching, is whole-hearted commitment

to what is best for those within our world,

too close a hold, though,

and the bird doesn’t learn how to fly,

the familiar becomes the comfortable,

and the comfortable can make us not take risks,

we do not become as fully open

to risk, to growth, to the other

who challenges us to get out there,

and find out who others are,

so that we can more fully find out who we are,

our sons have left the South

to put down roots in the upper Mid-West and in New England,

their kids are hard at work discovering who they are

and who they can be,

I love reuniting with them,

so that they can know some of their roots,

and that we can know some of the branches they build

to flower and fruit under the same sun

but in different soil, enriched by other pasts,

and futures the questing tendrils of their newing selves

will find and follow,

the dispersal is vital, the return to the source is vital, too.

by Henry H. Walker

December 26, ‘21