In hopes that the world relents before breaking your back for a third time

Below the old dark basement stair there sat
your drafting desk, whose nuts, whose rambling arms
belied the old fine flicker of forge and vat,
of framing, making, building, dreamt-up forms,
of vision, hope from unsung pioneer
will one day invent his masterpiece, his tour
de force. Aged desk, are you prepared to tell?
Has time arrived to meet fear
with nose, to nose? If asked, work surface, flour
everything kneaded, ease us—all is well…

Tinkering sets and Lincoln logs dispersed
along with the plastic basketballer toy
buried within a young man’s cedar purse,
casket of treasures, strong-box made of boy.
Always I played with playthings left from when
younger and younger versions of you lived
in worlds where daydreams folded on the earth.
Desire and intent
informed a simple world that muted moved
en route to Blissed Everlasting: Birth. Rebirth.

Soon come the fadings, manhood disenchants
in worlds without enchantments, glamoury.
When Everyone is worried, caught in rants,
conned, abused, used, massaged with emery—
they take (cause taken), break (broke), bricked (in turn)
because they know not if the “what I should do”
can break the reverie
of all I’ve known and know to do: to burn.
And thus the good we know we never do do.

Or do we? Really, do we only ill?
Methinks that the good men in this world are good,
that every bad man still in bed feels
all his guilt growing blackened mold-food
upon his own soul’s plinth and weeps inside
the backside of eyes, either eye like glass,
Man who, unmanned, unarmed, will know regret.
From such no evil hides,
though some exist like their remorse can’t outweigh past
sins. Godly-born sorrow makes for better brides.
Repentance without regret ain’t hard to get…

For grace does marry mercy to the just,
it pays the debt with money from above,
the death deserved by the inflictor still a must,
yet made innocuous, the vile removed.
Our resurrected Savior is alive
who died: it is his demise that extricates.
Be free. For good men get their goodness from
the Ghost Whose Life still thrives
in all things, reminds us all that “Grace on grace”
applies to the apple, airplane, smile, the broom.

For the begotten’s better still than the made,
for making takes what’s given, makes it less.
But the begetter rears up a peer, his shade,
his shadow, fellow, counterpart to bless.
Was not the Father him that Christ promotes?
Got not Christ glory making man his friend?
The Spirit earned his praise in Mary’s womb
slept not with her, but woke.
Begetting is the better thing: to die
so what’s begotten remains (empty tomb).

I can’t achieve your feat: No you? No me.
No you, then none of me of whom you’re proud.
I say that in begetting me, a seed
freed freedom — piece of you. Behind this shroud
hid Heath — a kinder man — and Lauren came,
who is favored in form and pax arsa.
In Heath — that open land untilled is a bond.
Distill these two, their fame
still trumps my own. You see? Like a dream, far as
I know, your achievement cannot soon abscond.

“But Lance, my boy, all men beget!” How true,
but not intentionally. And none can
beget this son, these three. Dad, it’s not new,
but older things are often better: you stand
where others flee. You foot our bills, you ache,
give when there’s none to give, and give still more.
This means more than the theories relative,
which split atoms, dry lakes.
carpenter, learn from Carpenter this trust:

Beget: to give another life, chores.

Through ecstasy, family from family lives.
This, I believe, is genius.

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