Smiles

I went to a kids hockey game tonight, the son of some friends from college. I'm happy to report my friends were good, mellow hockey parents (yes, "mellow hockey parents" is not always an oxymoron). No surprise to me, then, that when their son came out after the game, a tough loss, he smiled and thanked me for coming to the game. A family who gets it.

Reminds me of an incident a few years ago when I was teaching, which I just had to turn into a high-horse poem:



Smile, Margaret


Smile, Margaret
The father commands in a whisper
From the back of the room,
Urging his eleven-year-old daughter
Who takes the stage with classmates to sing.
Not perform or entertain
But to sing simply.
As if she wouldn't.

And if I weren't ignorantly childless
I'd turn and say,
Talk is cheap, dad.
Beget smiles with yourself,
Not your pointed finger words.
Create joy rather than expect it.
Smiles are natural
Not conditioned reflexes like language.

Is there anything
As lonely
As impotent
As joyless
As to demand a smile?
Or as pathetic?
Remodel your life now.

Meat Puppets-Sam