Monkey-Boy
for my son Josh

Do you remember when I sang you the first forest songs,
and showed you how to arrange the bones?
You climbed up and over everything that was climbable:
sofa-mountains, table-caves, coatrack-trees
and waterfall-chairs.

My little monkey-boy, mercurial, bouncy,
ready for your stripes.
Never a blank slate, you were born
with your personality fully tanked
and priced to move.

And you must have had the justice dial
turned up extra high when you were crafted.
Do you remember how you were outraged
when Bart Simpson got bullied on TV?
No one had to teach you that it was wrong.

My wild little monkey-boy,
where did you learn to speak so eruditely?
Did a traveling consortium
of missionary english teachers
find you in the jungle and take pity on you,
thinking you Tarzan's primitive boy,
and leave you with a scholar's vocabulary?

Your controls must have been set
to bypass stranger anxiety as well.
Do you remember when you dove head first
into a room full of unknown people
as if they were a huge vat of candy?
I think you forgot I was even there
as you charmed grownup and toddler alike
with your swaying flute and fearless turban.

My darling monkey-boy,
your Gepetto must have placed
the philosopher's stone behind your eyes.
Like a reincarnated Neitszche,
you wanted to know the nature of good and evil
as soon as you were pushed out of the nest.
You swung from vine to vine looking for God
while the other little monkeys
were looking for grubs.

Sweet little monkey-boy,
you're an imp and a mazik,
and you fall into mischief through sheer curiosity,
but you've also got a piece
of Florence Nightingale's heart,
because you can't stand to see anybody suffer.

You played patty-cake with death
almost as soon as your life had begun.
Did you discuss esoteric mysteries
with the cherubim and seraphim
while your body lay motionless in that hospital bed?
Is that where your old-man-of-the-forest wisdom comes from?

My brave little monkey-boy,
I'll always be there to applaud you
as you conquer the world,
and to pick you up
when you fall out of your tree.
And no matter what,
I'll always be on your side.

David Aronson
April 2007