Abed: My Only Son; A Parent Philosophy Poem by nadia abduljabbar

Set your bird free,
If it comes back
It is meant to be,
I obeyed the English
Proverb and I sat
My only son free;
With all suppressed
Pain in the world
With all the fear,
For it might not
Always really
Work that way,
And motherhood
Might end like
Summer’s dry hay.

Yet
I did set my
Only son free;
A semi orphane;
For his malicious father
Is still breathing air,
I did not want to add
To his destined pain,
So I let him be
Free from my
Care, pain and
Responsibility.
I took the ‘road
Less travelled’,
As Robert Frost
Once had to say.

Poor child never
Understood I
Did that for
His maturity sake,
He did not grasp
MY
Profound philosophy.

I took the resk
For building his
Personality; I want
Him to be a true
Man in such
An age;
An era full of semi
Men who are like
Impossible siege,
I still yearn
For at least one
Real man living,
Not necesserily
breathing beside me-
I lost the hope
With my late fiance.

I taught him all
The morality I learned
From my parents
And good books
Verbally and in practice,
I tried to be
A good model
For him denying
Myself many a thing
Just to bring
Him up well.

CONTRADICTORY
Emotions and feelings
Were mingling inside
My heart and brain,
Looking into the face
Of my newly born infant;
I wanted to name him
After my father: ‘Yahia’,
But his so called natural
Father gave him his name,
Like that of a peasant poet;
‘Abed’ is a poet at heart;
A wounded heart he has
Because of deprivation
Of fatherly protection;
My heart and mind
Were in continuous fight
Trying hard to reach
The best way to
Elevate his MENTALITY.

I was dying to have
A daughter in this life,
Just like my late step
Mother who loved
Me as a daughter,
But God chose a son
For me. Now I know
How God was merciful
With me, for to have a girl
Not from my nationality
Would have been
A headache to me.

In my home town,
I saw many people
Raising their children
Like slaves just to
Keep them helping
When old age
Creeps to their brains,
I could not be as selfish
As such,
With my only possible
Ideal man, SO
I chose him to
Be free from guilt
From being obliged
To take care of me,
To be living by my side;
I chose not to
Breath the air
He inhales;
Not to smell his aroma
In his room,
Not to check if he
Has eaten well
Or not, to see
If he drank enough
Water or not.

You see when
You set a beloved
Free from so given
Promises not like
When you set
Your child free,
A darling rarely
Has sense of guilt,
For if he has it
He would not
Have committed
What forcefully could
Push
Beautiful feeling
From your heart
And compel you
To withdraw
With a painful awe.

But children do
Have guilt pertaining
To a loving parent,
And guilt with its
Dark spreading wings
Might kill the spirit,
And joy of living,
It might suffocate
The lungs and make
The heart unable
To beat like a happy
Drum.

Echo of unhappy rage
Are disappearing
From my son’s heart,
After being separated
By a devilish spell.


Singing birds are
Flying rear around us
He is leeping back
To my arms and lap
Hence, I do not
Regret not to be
Strongly attached;
And that I sat my only
Son free.

Jeddah,
May 15,2014