{"id":405,"date":"2015-10-03T22:01:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T05:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/?p=405"},"modified":"2015-10-05T22:08:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T05:08:49","slug":"on-remaining-neutral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/on-remaining-neutral\/","title":{"rendered":"On Remaining Neutral While Your Five-Year-Old Handles a Gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because I am finding my way through this fear of routine massacres in America. <\/em>
\nBecause it is so mysterious to me to raise a son. <\/em>
\nBecause I really have strong feelings about guns\u2014<\/em>
\nhere\u2019s a poem:<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ON REMAINING NEUTRAL WHILE YOUR FIVE-YEAR-OLD HANDLES A GUN<\/p>\n

It takes practice. It must,
\nto find just the right balance,
\nthe right way to sift, to modulate energy,
\nattitude, so he won\u2019t walk
\nback to the car, eyes glued to asphalt,
\nfilled with rapture or
\nsteeped in judgment,
\nafter touching that thing. You want
\nhim to be infused with nothing but sky. The barrel
\nis propped (mounted, I guess) on the edge
\nof a Vietnam copter. A boy
\nin fatigues keeps watch, with a personal
\nAirsoft lazily tossed beneath the seat
\nof the vintage machine he\u2019s been left with.
\nA boy in fatigues. Left with a Vietnam copter.
\nThe gun\u2019s metal is dull, not the sleek shine
\nyour son\u2019s mind was led to expect by the small
\ndoses of gunplay he\u2019s been able to see
\nin his carefully-crafted home environment.
\nSoftly, softly, he asks, Mom, what\u2019s this?<\/em>
\nHis small hands lift and lower the gun on
\nits perch, no sign of bullets, or battle, or death.
\nA gun,<\/em> you answer, so cool. His hands flutter
\na moment, then return with a question.
\nIt won\u2019t work anymore,<\/em> you tell him. Again,
\nso cool. What was it for? For war.<\/em> Four days
\nlater, up north, one more young man, barely
\na man, releases his misplaced white-hot vitriol into the bodies
\nof students. Your crafted, elusive
\nequanimity gone, you unloose all your anger
\nand fear of the gun not in your home (hush!) but on
\nFacebook. You even piss off your sister-
\nin-law. The way we can walk with such marked
\nrestraint amidst casual displays of masculine
\nviolence is itself an object of wonder, you think.
\nAnd while you lie on your bed, frazzled and knowing
\nthe sweet, twisted, quite normal joy
\nof kids being kids, while you fervently
\nwish the NRA could truly be sent
\nto a hell you know
\nwill never, ever exist, your five-year-old
\nwanders in. Elbows propped, small hands under chin:
\nMom, I really want a dart-gun.<\/em>
\nShit. It takes practice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Amy Elizabeth Robinson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because I am finding my way through this fear of routine massacres in America. Because it is so mysterious to me to raise a son. Because I really have strong feelings about guns\u2014 here\u2019s a poem:   ON REMAINING NEUTRAL WHILE YOUR FIVE-YEAR-OLD HANDLES A GUN It takes practice. It must, to find just the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood","category-poetry","category-social-change"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4goq1-6x","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.turningplanet.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}