We Are Connected

(for Shaaz)

you were first imagined

mango sweet beaches

east west hemispheres

long before our eyes met,

before your voice was clear and strong

blowing in from the music of my decades,

long before our eyes met,

along red purple canyon walls

beside New York art museums and ballparks

from Woodstock to Mt. Tamaulipas,

between bridges and tunnels

ontop green gray smoky mountains…

yes, the sweet sky…

you are my life’s ultimate work.

you were imagined

all of you,

crawling to consider birthday books,

counting steps in different languages,

munching on sweet Bermuda onions,

sipping apple juice through the night,

tricking allopathic doctors,

stealing little league bases and

catching touchdown passes,

drumming in 4/4 hard drivin jazz time,

computing algebraic quadratic equations,

manipulating convoluting puzzles while

delighting your teachers,

swimming pool laps,

reciting the Four Questions,

gracing Saudi Arabian mosques,

soothing your sweet Mother’s worries

your father’s mistakes,

and playing this life for all its worth

long before our eyes met,

long after our eyes had learned from son-father truths.

we are links

you and I,

historically

significantly

way back before the dawn of Europe and Africa,

and we are connected

powerfully

righteously

notes harmonizing inside major chords,

primary colors blending inside abstractexpressionist paintings,

occasional competitors bowing to humanity,

modest travelers riding God’s long train to higher ground,

willing keepers of the Light,

Akiva and Maimonides, grateful gardeners

tending generational flowers,

many yet to be born.

you and I

we were connected

long before our eyes met,

when you read your first book,

before you first cried away from the womb,

after you crossed the finish line,

since your first kiss,

for all time

we were connected,

our hearts having bonded us,

our struggle together having defined us:

power and independence

experience and discovery

shedding light and blinding sun

your air and my fire,

we were connected

not only because of blood-

in spite of it,

not because of laws-

in spite of them,

not because of man-

in spite of him.

and we shall remain audaciously connected,

co-beings struggling to breathe,

father and son inevitably joined

tragically kicking each other’s tin can down the road

while forging our own paths,

and all the time understanding

Love is all we’ll ever need

to fuse our link

somewhere approaching that place in eternity,

where Fathers and Sons

emerge from all ages

to sit down together

at the feet of God.