Recognitions by Rachel Hadas

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 30, 2014   Recognitions   Rachel Hadas

When my son was a few weeks old, replicas of his yawning face appeared suddenly on drowsy passersby: middle-aged man’s gape that split his beard, old woman on a bus, a little girl— all told a story that I recognized. Now he is fifteen. As my students shuffle in the door of the classroom, any of the boys could easily be him— foot-dragging, also swaggering a little, braving the perils of a public space by moving in a wary little troop. But the same sleepy eyes, the same soft face. We recognize the people whom we love, or love what we respond to as our own, trusting that one day someone will look at us with recognition.            Copyright @ 2014 by Rachel Hadas. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “Since my son recently turned thirty, ‘Recognitions’ could be said to be fifteen years old.  But the poem was never published, perhaps because it was never wholly satisfactory. My latest tinkerings resulted in the present version. Now my son is older instead of younger than my students, but—as when he was a yawning infant or a cautious adolescent in a troop—being his mother still helps me to take in the world more personally, humanly, maybe more humanely than might otherwise be the case.” —Rachel Hadas   Rachel Hadas is the author of The Golden Road (Northwestern University Press, 2012). She teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and lives in New York City. Most Recent Book by Hadas   The Golden Road (Northwestern University Press, 2012) “On My First Son” by Ben Jonson “Goodnight Moon” by James Arthur “The Pomegranate” by Eavan Boland Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038