The Circle

He’s turned sixteen today, early this morning to be exact

—his great grandfathers, both of them passing before their own

were born—and I now sit and prepare to sit in circle

a first time, with a grandchild sixteen years full into life.

That it will wax and wane, the sense of it, the fullness of it

always remains, and it is of this I wish to tell him,

of the fullness, of receiving and of giving, of reciprocity,

of the flow that sustains.

And that it is the most simple acts, the acts of recognition

of participation as the gift that fulfills, as the gift that speaks

of the character and of the direction

of true human being.

This, my wish, I told him for his living,

the very same I hold for my own

and too for you

who hear.