(When Your Parents Were Made of Light – in Rhyme)

You came to us already bright as story,
two living legends made of light and glory.
My mother, Speech’s queen and words’ high priest,
could hush a tempest with the grace she released.
My father walked through centuries without fear,
a pastor-orator whom heaven leaned to hear.

Onstage he roared as Henry the Eighth in might,
beard all aflame, a thunderbolt of light;
yet home he came to tuck us safe in bed
and calm the little tempests in our head.
He conjured storms as Prospero with staff,
then broke the wand to make our small world laugh.

My mother danced as Maria, quick and keen,
wit like a rapier, mischief in her sheen;
she fooled the lords and turned the play to glee,
then fooled the dark that it must bow to she.
No count could match her, no dull steward could,
and joy itself obeyed her as it should.

Yet curtain down, the grandest roles began:
Professor-Mother, Professor-Pastor-Man.
She taught the world how breath and tongue align,
he preached of kings yet made the Gospel shine.
In pulpit thunder, Sunday after Sunday,
then knelt in quiet dust our shoes to tie each Monday.

At table, Renaissance and potatoes flew,
homework became a scene for four, not two;
our grammar crimes earned glorious rebuke
in perfect couplets from a Shakespeare book.
We laughed till tears came—my twin brother and I—
two children rich beneath a double sky.

They showed us language is a kind of spell,
and history just love that time learned well;
a kitchen table can be Stratford’s stage
if hearts are large enough to turn the page.
A bedtime tale can be a sermon’s grace
when spoken by a Prospero-turned-face.

We grew believing brilliance can be kind,
that dazzling minds leave tenderness behind;
a scholar may quote Montaigne at the stove
and still know exactly how the child is loved.
They never dropped the parts they played as parents—
each entrance timed, each exit full of radiance.

So here’s to Henry gentle on his throne,
to Prospero whose only wish was home,
to Maria whose mischief mended all,
to two bright souls who answered every call.
They cast us—boy and girl, their mirrored twins—
as heroes long before our lives begin.

We were the luckiest children time has known,
raised where the footlights and the hearthlight shone;
our parents, legends made of light and rhyme,
still take their bows in us, through us, for all time.