Poem: I, Too, Could Speak of Old Wrongs Done

I, Too, Could Speak of Old Wrongs Done

This, it would be the way you harmed your son,
wanting him to be right and perfect in the only way
you could accept, being what you expected,
and you did not allow him
as he was.  He never thrived at all,
was denied a chance for that.
You looked at what was done for me
as shameful, refused to understand kindness
and now you wish to say
it was all mistakes 
by those who made those choices,
while you refused to do a thing
for the one in your care.
I have heard what you say now
long before this, have heard it,
the disparagement that aims towards me,
and I am only saddened.
I know you cannot understand
how much you needed to learn,
how you might have helped him.
Do not pretend you know best for me
when you did not know anything
of what to do for another,
when the model laid out for you
was one that only deserved ridicule.
I was looked down on for who I am:
it has been so for much of my life, is still this way, I think,
at least when I speak to you.  But you failed.
You could not accept who your son truly was,
the truths of his existence.  You denied it,
cast it away, said it was different and lesser
to be that, but it did not change 
who that boy was.  He would have been better off
if you had been more like my parents,
if you had chosen to love who he was
and not demand a boy who didn't exist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I want...
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Sixty-Five

One of my teachers, the late poet Thomas Lux, was fond of pointing out that writing and publishing are two different things.  He stressed the need for a writer to focus on the work itself, not on the building of a career or the accumulation of publishing credits and other accolades.  Those things are not what a writer should be working towards, he would say, but instead the focus needs to be upon the craft.  He once expressed to me his belief that great work will always find a way into the world, even if it is after the artist has died.  Emily Dickinson is, of course, a prime example of this, though far from the only one.  That is a fine way to think about these things, but, and Lux also acknowledged this, to have a career as a writer requires doing all that other work. I tend to think that the writing itself is an important act on its own, having nothing to do with whether the work finds an audience immediately or not, and the publishing aspect as more of an ...
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work....
Read more