Thank you for putting words to my thought, dear Robert.

You are one of my favorites,

though I only know you through your published works

and an admiring, respecting description of you

wearing your common — well suited — bow tie

mentioned in a movie* of the 1980’s.

 

“But I have promises to keep,”**

a simple – yet strong – commitment,

meaning I will put great effort to

keeping, fulfilling, maintaining . . .

as far as I possibly can.

Pledges, Promises, Plans spoken out-loud.

 

When I promise to love forever, dear child

you can count on it —

despite spills, messes, broken treasures,

sassy retorts, sneaking out after I fall asleep,

even when you follow different politics.

I promise to love through time, beyond FOX vs MSNBC.

 

I too, “have promises to keep” —

loving you through our weeks and years of agreement

and especially during our disputed views

that cannot change that you were born to me.

You nursed and nuzzled and knew I would be there

promised in whispered love between this mother and my dear, beloved child.

 

by Nancy Ann Smith, Poetry Marathon Prompt #2, June 25, 2022

 

• Kate Nelligan played a college professor describing you in “Without  A Trace” 1983
• “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, as seen in The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem.   Copyright 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost.   Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.     Source:  Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995)