You will walk three lines O'er many lives
Be taught the ways I never knew
To reach back through the tangle
Of time and genetic memory
Until, Lo There, he sees his ancestors
He will take the form of a beast
And on four legs crawl and howl
And learn to trust too himself
Or some new song that we cannot fathom
Out of the babble of the innocent
And those first wild eyed thoughts
When his mother and I tire of beasts
He will learn the lessons of Chivalry
Not in the way the world is
But in the way it should be
And he will ride out with his Host
His Lance of bicycles and nerf bats
And learn that the world is like La Chanson
Full of monsters and heroes
Full of failure and victory and pain
We heap upon him playful tasks
And upon those tasks accolades
Until he grows canny and strong and merry
And carries the gems of his memories
In the stout strongbox of his little heart
For the rest of his days.
And though we may pretend
That childhood will wane, will tarnish,
As his wisdom opens his eyes to the world
As all who bear children must surely lament
And we will guide him into manhood
Into the uncertain future
His sword hand will learn the ways of the new war
Of the $-vector//and//payload
Of the rifle and the drone
Of the propaganda viruses
He will question all our truths
For he will have learned circumspection
Even to gods, and sweethearts, and his own memories
And though it pains us, we let him learn
Those painful lessons of the adolescent
That they who are too wise and too stupid
And in the blink of an eye
