Learning Love

Learning Love
by Gideon Burton

In time our children come to re-create us;
their lives, a nearby echo of our own.
We measure how we are within their status,
less certain who we are when they leave home.
In time our children walk without our aid;
they speak and learn and earn without us there.
A son becomes a groom and courts a maid;
We count the years and, speechless, dumbly stare.
My father told me once I'd never know
of love until I held my newborn child.
My newly-wedded child has made the flow
of love redouble: something tame and wild,
both old and new, both hot and breezy cool.
He'll start to know, now he is off to school.