Changing Shapes (for Aaron)

by

Diane Klammer

Strange geometry:
Intersecting lines
Cubicles, hexagrams quadrangles
Physics instructors
I haven't met
Shape you, Aaron
Into a scientist.

Your sister and I
Beeline to your door
Straight as the road will allow.
The freeway stops dead
At the University gates
Abrupt as if two Gargoyles
Are on guard.

My position in the car
Is as you remember.
My shoulders curl in anticipation.
My mind is a question mark.
Once inside, bewildering architecture
Draws us into your building.

Your small square room
With the bed above,
The desk underneath,
Houses you now. We are guests ehere.
This is your territory.

The dining hall
Where we eat dinner
Seats our friends, making six.
Jokes and salt crystals
Tilt a salt shaker
Humor is bouncced back and forth everywhere.

Your ring of sapphire blue
Turns into
A six pointed star
This rapid fire conversation
In hexagonal patterns
Amuses me.

The math of a game of pool
Confuses me.
I see imaginary lines
Crisscrossing the table.

It is late. I am tired. I am cross.
Amidst foreign shores
Of unfamiliar waves breaking
Into spur of moment decisions
I am lost.

Earlier in the evening
We saw a pyramid;
The ever burning light
Flickers from me.
Almost burnt out
I fade from your life.

Only five weeks into college
I can no longer hold you.
Your mind, always intricate
Is a distant million light years
Away from me
Two hours down the road
At UCSB.

How will they shape you
In four years,
My only son?

Who only yesterday
Was clinging to my legs before
Running off to explore your toddler world.

My legs are stems
Which will become more tired still
As I remain grounded,
Wishing to be
A vine growing near this tree towering above me.

The circle is incomplete.
Still, I must let go.

NEXT?
Why don't you look at How We Feel
by: Angela Bean
from: Stuarts Draft, VA, US

To visit all of Diane Klammer's poems, click HERE

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