Thoughts upon attending my daughter's High School Graduation

Women I've Known

I've known many women
Having seen them for years,
Heard their words in the schoolyard,
All their hopes and their fears.

I've known women
Who worried,
I've known women
Who cried
With the joyfully fearsome
Sweet bitter goodbyes.

They would sit on the benches
(I see them there still)
And talk of the futures
Of their wants and their wills.

But their children will never
See quite what I've seen,
They'll change much of the settings
And the words
That have been.

For the women I've known
Have succumbed
(Through those years)
To a decade of handwringing
Hairsplitting cheer.

It's the cheer of the women
Who know that one day
That same schoolyard of laughter
Will pretend (far away)
To be more of what wasn't
And yet less of what was,
And a great deal of the other
With a teacher and class.

With a shoe
And a notebook,
A quite small
Pencil-case,
Something lost
And then found
On the child's small face.

And with a label so named
That it's easily seen,
Those same women I've known
Know too well
Where I've been.