Mankind
Rest assured its what’s between his legs
but its also more than that.
It takes a lifetime to figure out
how anyone can be a man.
Preaching hard about it when you’re young
often paints you in a cold corner.
Lately he’s thought that in addition
to his biology is the capacity for silence, to absorb it,
to hear it as something distinct,
to listen to it all.
He has no certainty about this,
it could just be him.
JDB- you got me thinking….
it takes a strong and humble heart ~ not a selfish, weak or demanding heart ~ to truly fill what’s between a man’s legs….and the wisdom and strength in a woman’s heart can discern the difference
In A Sunlit Absence, by Martin Laird, “Silence circulates through the open porches of the mind. But to the mind unventilated by silence, there is only what we like and what we dislike coming at us from all sides, day after day, indeed, decade after decade.”
My six year old asked the other day how we could tell that our one twin (we have two boys) is not a girl. Being short on time, I fell back on the old “what’s between the legs” definition.
As the mother of four adult sons and one very manly husband, I love this! It’s what between their legs, but it’s so much more than that.
I retract. Was that a Freudian slip? Do I mother my husband?
I revise: As the mother of four adult sons and the wife of one very manly husband, I love this! Etc., etc. 🙂
No, it’s not what is between his legs. Biology determines the sex, *not* the gender. This is pretty transphobic, and I’m really disappointed. I had appreciated a lot of your other stuff.
Andrew, might I ask you to sit with the poem a little longer? Biology is where we all begin, but ‘its also more than that.’