Teeter Totter

(This is an old poem, July 2005. But still relevant today.)

It is a delicate balance, I think,
between all that is
good and
evil.
In his one-year-old eyes I see
potential
possibility
opportunity.
In his eyes I see
wonder
innocence
hope
lost, mostly, in adult eyes forever.
On NPR I hear
another bomb
another attack
another war, or simply
another dreary day of rain.
The teeter totter shifts
suddenly, to the fulcrum,
the weight of the world is impossible,
filled with hopelessness, despair, a sense of evil.
And then,
he smiles at me
a broad, radiant, beaming grin,
eyes twinkling and merry
his delight with his
world, with being
Alive -
all of his one year.
We teeter
back again.