For “Cracking Open the Content Tme Capsule, we were to revisit our posts from this day, July 31. This post is from 2016.

Family Harvest

Sanguine, he was charismatic,
while she was choleric and emphatic;
so when their child was born phlegmatic,
the mother found his moods too static
while the father ruled his wife fanatic:
too moody, crabby and dramatic.

Their melancholic second child,
both parents found to be too mild.
Too analytical and quiet,
they put her on a special diet
of jalapenos in her suppers
and other culinary uppers.

Still, she grew up to be a judge,
while their eldest remained hard to budge.
Too relaxed to find employment,
he lacked the necessary deployment––
preferring to stay safe at home,
as lifeless as a garden gnome.

With dad the life of every party
and mother volatile and arty,
their family life slowly eroded.
Then one day, simply exploded.
Each unique personality
split off to be what they could be.

Thus would sage Hippocrates
class this familial demise
as differences in temperament.
Each following his special bent,
once fallen from the family tree,
did best when allowed to roll free.

“Four temperaments ” is a proto-psychological theory that suggests that there are four fundamental personality types, sanguine (optimistic and social), choleric (short-tempered or irritable), melancholic (analytical and quiet), and phlegmatic (relaxed and peaceful).––Wikipedia