How Shall I Feel

Unusually, I don't quite know how
I feel about the whole deal. 

Usually, it’s pretty easy for me
To name the elusive and fleeting
Emotions, even if, usually, 

They are transient, skipping
Quickly through my mind, over
My heart, bouncing off to 
Be replaced in a moment.

I name them as they escape, 
My fluttering sensitive butterflying
Feelings, bright colored and away, 
Definitively shaped but hard to 
Hold fast in hand. 

Not this time, not this time.
The father was born the day
My daughter died: his parents cared
For our son as we hospital sat, on
Guard at final moments until
His mother needed to be confined;

And I watched the father’s father hold
Father’s son as the baby was enrolled
In the covenantal community.  I was pleased,
Happy, proud for the father whom I
Witness grow to man

And now would bear his 
Generational responsibility, to
Nurture, love, raise the child
Within the people

Yet I could not restrain in full
The soupçon of envy-tears
Oozing, read by most

As joy, which it was, 
But laced with absent

Always usual
Ever-present love.