Done, Done and Donne

Last night I walked into my house after another day spent sitting in one spot with my legs tucked under a desk. Need I say more? I was ready for my Mizunos (favorite running shoe) and dog leash clinking for a quick walk before the sunset. As I rushed to beat the dark, I passed my son with his chin propped on his fists, then forehead held by palms. A John Donne poem with scrawl on both margins was the culprit. "I can't decide why he used this metaphor to describe love."

Thinking this would be a snap, I asked: "Would you read it to me?" He did. "Read it again." He did. "One more time." All right. I grabbed a pen light, the poem, the dog and my son. "Let's take a walk and read the poem while we are in motion." By now it was nightfall, so the pen light served as our guide to our walking interpretation. I start a tangent about love and bargaining and leverage. He stopped me: "No, No. We've got to stay within the context of the poem." I'm flummoxed at this point. 

As we return from our walk, this frustration is mounting. We go back to the Donne drawing board. Exasperated I ask: "What does it mean to you?" In a desperate way to end all of this, he said: "Love is competition." I ran for the Roget's. "Contend, battle, contest." He begins to calm, "Contest." 

Then another escalation in his anxiety; "I just wasted an hour!" Hmm. My inner humanity said silently: "Wow, he wasted as hour." Then my inner parent remembered what only a child can bring out of me. "This hour was not wasted. We walked Bugsy, read poetry, talked poetry, and it will never happen exactly like that again." Of course, every time I've said anything of substance as an object lesson to my children, it's been the first time I've "learned the lesson."

Side note: If I ever had to dissect poetry, I would never write it again. I am a Luddite poet. Sorry John Donne.