Children and Carpe Diem

Here’s a truth:  children grow up too fast. And here’s an auxiliary truth: life goes by too fast; we are too soon old. Therefore, carpe diem. As a poetry lover, I wish to share with you this poem by Thomas Lux.

A Little Tooth

by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.

* * *

"A Little Tooth" from Drowned River by Thomas Lux. Copyright © 1990 by Thomas Lux. Borrowed from the Poetry Society of America’s website.