Prayer for My Progeny

My children have been embarrassed by me for most of their lives;
If I hadn't been able to see my mission, I wouldn't have survived.
My mother saw me as arrogant; her religion saw me as damned.
I'd have followed a different path, at The Sacred Spirit's command.

I am now a lonely pilgrim on my solitary path to eternity;
Though I have often attempted to justify my being, simply, me.
The more my vision for my mission becomes increasingly clear,
The more I face the impending loss of those I hold most dear.

I did not ask for the visions that my universal views project;
I only mentioned them to, my progeny's world, protect.
I am now seen as a grim reaper, one who attempts to kill
The positive energy I attempted, through my life, to instill.

Why are we so stubbornly married to our ancestor's example?
The need for independent thought is, to me, increasingly ample.
From turning to others' mistakes, I've tried to turn others away;
It is not that I've ever believed they are doomed in any way.

I have not pretended that I had all answers for children today;
I have simply shared what my experience prompted me to say.
By what else can we elders warn them, but by our experience?
It is not as if we ask that they swear, to our beliefs, allegiance.

Simply honor our request that you listen with respect,
Before, our experience and concerns, you summarily reject.
There may be kernels of truth, in your own human history,
That you would rather not have your children forced to see.

What if you could protect them by learning from the elderly,
Even one child from the horrors that we were forced to see?
Would it be worth a few minutes of your contemporary boredom
To protect your child from what we have, through our lives, become?

It is easy to turn away from humanity's history, most vile;
It is important, from these stories, to insulate every child.
I waited until you had your own children to explain
Why, from so many of your current paths, I refrain.

I have never attempted to turn your children against you,
Or to give them reason to doubt that which you think is true.
Is it because your children trust I'll always be there for them
That you have turned against me, as your most constant friend?

I know, as do you, that I've never been embarrassed by you;
I have always stood proudly with what you say and do.
Is this the reason that I now receive your greatest scorn;
You believe you were, for less than unqualified love, born?

I have loved you from the moment I knew you were inside my womb;
My love wasn't dependent on how you would be groomed.
I will never understand how you prefer to turn your identity back.
Are you so afraid that your Sacred Spirit, by others, will be attacked?

Without committed strong community, none of humanity is stable.
I have protected you and your Scared Spirit as long as I was able.
I have lost all those who love me to their fear of my madness.
I am not mad; I'm simply overcome with mortal sadness.

If you can say that The Sacred Spirit commanded you
To do all you seem you feel, for your family, you must do,
I will gladly tell you to go in peace; for that is want I want.
I have never loved you for your abilities I could flaunt.

Was my greatest arrogance believing I could be your mother?
If I had not borne you, would you have been borne by another?
In the lessons of the universe, we will never truly know
How the history and fate of humankind, on earth, grow.

I'm sorry that I shame you; this was never my intent.
This didn't, in biblical history, seem to have precedent.
I do understand that, for instructions, to go forward,
We must write our own; not rely on historical words.

I did to my parents, as you may think you do to me,
But there are many differences that you cannot see.
My parents preached what they certainly didn't live;
What destroys me is the life which, for you, I give.

The family that I come from has behaved as unconcerned
About sacrificing themselves for ancestral lessons learned.
Before I bore you, I decided to teach you responsibility,
From which my mother chose to set her family free.

My father stopped fighting when your father came along.
He said that, with your young father, his family belonged.
Your father's mother died; it left him, without her, weak;
Something about which I was, forever, forbidden to speak.

Our society is full of admonishments for us to focus
Only on the words of a promised future still before us.
We refuse to look back upon experience to steer us away
From futures, those called prophets, continue to portray.

Until we see that the ancestors, good and bad, in our past
Have left imprints on the universe that will forever last;
We will not see that the experiences of the past continue,
Until we learn the lessons, and do what we're meant to do.

This is not the same as believing in reincarnation,
In a single body in which we each have manifestation.
It is believing the energy in each life going on to be
A part of the eternal universe's new identity.

I chose, many years ago, to see only, in life, the good;
For this I was expelled from more than one neighborhood.
It also made me prey to many who scorned me;
I simply never though they would, my own children, be.

I've been dead for several years; yet I continue to breathe;
It is for my own children's acceptance that I still grieve.
I put off the fight of divorce; was it for too many years?
My children are now punishing me as I had, for years, feared.

What I then saw as strength, is by them, seen as weak;
They don't see it's the honor of family that I still seek.
I was never a feminist, angry at the majority of men;
I have sought, my whole life, simply to be friends.

I have few friends now, though I'm admired by many;
My experience says they will all certainly flee
When the values to which people of creeds agree,
Rather than questioning what each is meant to be.

It may never have been meant to, in my lifetime,
Have an earth without victims of violent crime
Or to have countries that truly want to live in peace;
This would have many incomes of power decrease.

I know how difficult it is to live only off the land;
Denying absolute ownership our country demands.
There are areas of our country that have compromised,
Awarding leases for as long as a caretaker survives.

The ancestors of you, my children, live in fear and greed,
As if the things they seek are what they truly need.
I'm sorry that you've been part of such irresponsibility;
I cannot support their efforts and still be true to me.

I care for you and your children more than you can know;
It simply hurts all of us when I let my passion show.
This is something I don't choose; I'm simply overwhelmed
By the beauty of heaven that should be out of my realm.

You are all the heaven I want, here upon this earth
You're more than I expected when I gave you birth.
My most fervent prayer for you and your progeny:
That you'll never let your history stop who you're born to be.