Are clay that guilt can model into any feature
In the parents’ image. Yet love’s to be demonstrated
In the lives they lead, the ends they direct,
The egoism and worldly ambition they forsake
Now, not hereafter - and from hymns of the hereafter
The kiddie-seeds of new life are presumed to sprout!
But what child, when he errs, can become eternity?
He cannot be lived by what he cannot even see!
But whatever he lives with, that he learns:
Living with hypocrisy, he learns to be cynical,
But living with sincerity, he learns to find faith;
Living with the Furies, he learns to feel guilt,
But living with acceptance, he learns to find love.
10. ‘Waiter, dear?’
The tenth to be prevented from becoming a whole person
Jostled for the right to fumble-buttoned clothes
And a faultless goddess said, ‘Let me do that’;
Gathered in his hand the voice of his selfhood
And was told, ‘No; you will spill it. I shall pour it’;
Went into the garden in search of his personhood,
To smother old fears and learn new courage,
And Dame Watchful semaphored to his groping years;
Opened his mouth for a say in his future
And the postie looked for a cake to shove in it;
Opened his ears to neighbourhood children
And the censor tried to stop them with prejudice;
Opened his eyes to family problems,
But no wider circle gave power of awareness...