That tiny baby in your arms
Exerting tiny baby charms
Plants relationship and family seeds
Teaching you to meet his needs
And so begins the endless dance
Between control and happenstance
The baby learns and the baby grows
Into a child who uses what a child knows
To interpret expression-- smile or frown
When he wants holding, but you set him down
Then as a teen exerting truth or guile
He’ll coax a dollar and draw a smile
By the passions felt and passions gorged
The soul will be massaged and forged
The love it’s craved and the love it’s caught
The hate it’s feared and hate it’s fought
Jealousy, valor, envy and hope
All inform of how he’ll cope
All that he encounters, all he feels
Forever affect how he thinks and deals
Experiences while just a child
Sway him for a long, long while
Even as an adult aware and free
Part of him still vulnerable on Mama’s knee
