Three generations of poets

I remember finding out at some point in my young life that my Dad had written poetry. In a box my Mom was going through she found a poem and I remember thinking two things. One was, “That is pretty weird.” Two was, “That’s not half bad.” Not that I was probably qualified to judge because I was less than ten, but I remember it was a poem about Wilt Chamberlain.

This fall, my son cruised to a student council election victory on the strength of his election speech which he put in the form of a poem. Yesterday, he read part two as part of announcement to encourage his school to read more to reach a school wide goal. Apparently it was a big hit with the school with the exception of the eighth graders who my son said gave him a “pity clap”. I think he was joking.

The funny thing is that we have never talked about my poetry writing or his grandfathers, yet he has picked up the pen. It is more for fun than fame, and it seems that poetry in daily life has disappeared even more than when I was in school, but somehow he found his way to it. It brings about a lot of nature and nurture thoughts in me, but more than that I think it shows a generational connection. There is some thread within families that cannot be explained but is evident in the strangest ways from the way we talk to the things we like. My son is a lot different from me, and I am a lot different than my Dad. But as I get older, I appreciate more and more those times that God reveals a way that I am the same, connected in ways that I don’t understand.

I wonder to if this is not partly how God sees us. We are his children, and every once in awhile we do something where he looks at us and is pleased because we have displayed some trait of his.