Meditation On My Oldest Son’s Birthday

He turned 51 today
By that age
I’d already burned
Through two marriages

Had started a new
Relationship eleven months
Prior to my fifty-first
It’s still going strong

I wonder how his life experience
Compares to mine
On this, his fifty-first
From the outside

He looks just fine
But then again
So did I, but I wasn’t
That took lots of time

Unattached for years
He doesn’t seem to need
Those conventional commitments
Their reasons and forced rhymes

Again, he seems just fine

–LE