No Place for the Poet

silence is not golden
noise is king
you want me to be everyone
and to do everything
never stop
don't be still
don't let the fog clear from your mind
thumb twiddlers, vagabonds,
we'll have nothing to do with your kind
put on a show
keep dancing
let us see what you can do
'cause here there's no place for the poet
no, there's no place here for you
who just sits and lets time pass
who stares at the stars
and walks barefoot in the grass
who feels the wind
upon their face
for you, the poet, there is no place
a waste of time!
a waste of space!
a waste of time!
a waste of space!
you've got to live in the lines we've traced
for you, the poet, there is no place

Perfect Moments: Deep Conversation with a 3 year old

Today's moment....



My son and I were eating dinner at the table when I was telling him about things I used to do when I was little. Then, he asked me if he was there and I told him no...that he didn't even exist at that time. He paused for a moment, then said, "Oh, so I was in your belly huh?" And I tried to explain to him again that he was not around at all when I was little. He looked at me with a crazy look and threw up his hands. "Well, then where the heck was I?," he asked. He had this baffled look on his face like he could not understand how there was a time when he didn't exist. Then, I could see the wheels turning. He continued, "How did I get here?" I could tell he wasn't looking for a birds and bees explanation, he was asking in a more philosophical tone of voice. He wondered how could something ever not exist.

Instead of answering right away and giving him my assumptions on the topic, I let him sit for a while and sort it out in his head. He came up with a few hypotheses. 1) Maybe mommy and daddy said, "abra cadabra" and used magic to make him appear 2) Maybe he existed in space somewhere before he was born 3) Maybe he was inside some food and he came out like a seed 4) Maybe he was an alien before and now he was a boy.

After he gave some of his own thoughts on the subject, I gave him a few ideas of what other answers other people have come up with in the past (e.g. the big bang theory, creationism, evolution, via actions taken by various gods). I didn't want to tell him one was right and the others wrong. I did not want to give him the assumptions/ideas I have come up with over time. I just wanted him to get an idea of what was out there so that he could compare them to his own ideas and have something to think on. He listened and then, after a short time, he put his foot up in the air and said...."Mom, look at my stinky feet!" It made me laugh. Although I am glad to see my son is getting old and wise enough to think about the BIG questions, I am glad he can still, simply, be a silly kid.