Success, For Jeremy Poem by Michael Burch

Success, for Jeremy
by Michael R. Burch

We need our children to keep us humble
between toast and marmalade;

there is no time for a ticker-tape parade
before bed, no award, no bright statuette

to be delivered for mending skinned knees,
no wild bursts of approval for shoveling snow.

A kiss is the only approval they show;
to leave us? the first great success they achieve.

I wrote this poem after fixing my son Jeremy some toast and getting a kiss in return. The "marmalade" is poetic license; it was actually toast with butter and jam, or maybe peanut butter and jam. Keywords/Tags: Child, Children, Childhood, Son, Sons, Sonhood, Boy, Boys, Boyhood, Father, Fathers, Fatherhood, Parent, Parents, Parenthood, Parenting, Family, Families, Family Life, Growing Up, Testing Wings, Empty Nest Syndrome