My Son, My Executioner

[PistisSophia]

My Son, My Executioner, Donald Hall 1955

My son, my executioner,
I take you in my arms
quiet and small and just astir
and whom my body warms.

Sweet death, small son,
our instrument of immortality,
your cries and hunger
document our bodily decay.

We twenty-five and twenty-two
who seemed to live forever
observe enduring life in you
and start to die together.

[Johnny Odd]

I quite like it - it's more than a little pessimistic thought, isn't it?
Do you believe once you bear children you begin to, "decay" and, "start to die together"?

[B-Mental]

I like the poem in general, but feel weighed down by its pessism. I found the last verse (quatrain?) to be very romantic.





We twenty-five and twenty-two
who seemed to live forever
observe enduring life in you
and start to die together.

[PistisSophia]

In a way, there is this feeling of giving so much that, indeed, with the stressors and worries and hopes and dreams of offspring, comes sometimes a feeling of decay and that the next generation spawned, thusly, have become "walking cadavers?". I know this is pessimistic; but after all I was called a romantic pessimist.

Childbearing does take a toll on the health/vitality, I think of many women.....

[Johnny Odd]

Pessimism is realism...
I do feel the last stanza is definately romantic, perhaps it's the use of, "together"

[PistisSophia]

Pessimism is realism...
I do feel the last stanza is definately romantic, perhaps it's the use of, "together"

It is much easier to grow old together than alone, in my own opinion. To have someone who remembers you when you were 25 helps to keep the equilibrium of the aging process, somewhat.

[mono]

On the first read, I thought, perhaps, that Donald Hall attempted seeing a pregnant woman's perspective who had just given birth or nears birth to a son, especially with lines like this:

I take you in my arms
quiet and small and just astir
and whom my body warms.
Then I read a few more times, and found that last line, particularly, the only application, and ruled out that thought. Truly, the concept of having a child, in a Tibetan Buddhist sort of way, further launches the aging process (a step closer toward mortality, so to speak), but does not necessarily make one old. Seeing a child once born, I understand how many people would feel amazement that they once, too, began at a similar point, with a similar size, and strikingly similar innocence, thoughts, and learning processes; it really brings a lot into perspective.
Lines like this really get me wondering:

Sweet death, small son,
our instrument of immortality,
your cries and hunger
document our bodily decay.
Life surely seems a sweet thing, and the realization of one's mortality can seem awfully painful. Not in all contexts, but does spawning children necessarily prove as an attempt at immortality; even after one has died long ago, his/her genes may have survived if his/her children had children, who had more children, etc. Of course, we need children for the world's well being, but do we multiply also for this reason, a sort of deception for death?
Then again, I wonder if Donald Hall even attempted communicating this. :p

[Aurora Ariel]

Thats an interesting perspective, but I think some may forget that there is no guarantee that those children will even reproduce.You may eventually have a child of your own, but that child may decide not to reproduce so therefore those genes are lost anyway.Some children may not even resemble their parents, especially in personality or due to environmental factors.
And my personal view is that yes, many probably reproduce(even if they are not fully conscious of it themself at the moment) as a way of obtaining "immortality'' though as previously shown this is not always the case as death can end a genetic line completely.Fear of mortality is the biggest and most ancient fear and most people do not wish to confront it, especially at such a young age.Immortality can only be achieved through science or creativity.

[rachel]

I nearly died with my first born a son. I had no idea what I was going to go through(thank God.) It took several years before I got any strength back and I can honestly say that during that time I did feel decay and death creeping ever forward to grasp my hand and take me away.
Yet it never occured to me like the author to consider the child the executioner. Whenever I gazed at his beautiful face,held him close, rocked him to sleep with trembling arms he was to me my greatest achievement, my Rembrandt as it were.
Still I find those words intriguing and I see in my mind the man and woman beginning a new journey which ends under neath a quiet green mound with that little one now grown looking down in love.
powerful

[PistisSophia]

Quite descriptive, short, yet so full of a kind of wisdom; like the grown child placing flowers or something at his parent's grave....whether or not he has any children, I think maybe extrapolates the meaning intention of the poem further than what was intended, maybe not, though. Certainly it depends on a given interpretation and that is the true beauty of poetry; that it is like music in that either it grabs you, or it doesn't.