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Hints to Earthly Hosts and Hostesses
Recognize your smallest children
as dignitaries from another place
whose customs do not include the recent
maintenance of that most awkward
appurtenance, a body in a gravity well:
were the Vulcan ambassador to lurch
suddenly, dropping his anchovy fork,
you would hardly cuff him upside the head
or caterwaul over his faulty bowel control.
Confined to that immobile wrapper
the newly-arrived soul may thus concentrate
on tuning to earthly rhythms and checking
the emotional barometer, just as a seasoned
traveler may put in with a family abroad
rather than dash for the first tourbus;
should you realize that your new guest
has not yet mislaid her telepathic gifts,
learning to replace them with the tiresome
movement of puffs of air over glottal spasms,
you will be spared much unnecessary embarrassment
later, when she confronts you with your baser impulses.
Finally, remembering that your visitor
has a rich and honored history that precedes
his brief but significant stay in your household,
that her interests may bear slight relation
to your sometimes irrelevant actions (you are not,
of course, privy to her complete itinerary)
you will not make the common but inaccurate
presumption that your genes, blood, and so forth
automatically make him "yours" any more
than
you'd believe the trousers you bid him wear
determine his current gender. "Parents"
who see beyond the mirror of flesh
make the best companions. But, after all,
isn't that why, out of Baedecker's many listings,
she picked you?
(c) Linda Eisenstein
Published in The Listening Eye, 1999 |
