So few words, and yet they sent a chill up my spine (which I think is a sign of a great poem)! I'm sorry you had to go through whatever painful hell it was you went through and glad you're writing about it, even with the details left out. Maybe at the end of the day, what we most need to metabolize most are our own feelings about what happened (including the fear), more than the details of the events themselves?
This is small but mighty, Karri Lynne! The fear that your silence makes you complicit is so relatable. How often have I colluded in my own gaslighting (and sometimes scapegoating) by remaining silent in situations where the narrative being offered is wildly different than my lived experience? Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this poem, Karri, a testament to your resilience and courage as you navigate through the pain. Our silences, in so many realms and so many contexts, invariably leads to wondering "what if" when we face the consequences wrought by those who exploit such silence. It seems to me that all we can manage at times is silence, until we find a way to be a part of, as Thomas Merton callls them, "raids against the unspeakable." I am so grateful you are here.
Thank you all for your kind comments. I will say that this was a situation from when I was a very young adult that I got out of after a few years. And it was more about emotional manipulation / coercive control but other people were affected in much worse ways. I walked away, cut ties, and it all seems like a dream rather than a memory sometimes.
I love the idea of poems flowing "into the space between writer and reader" and taking on shapes uniquely fit to our experience! And I love your brave poem, Lisa. Thank you for sharing!
The poem I felt most inspired to interact with today was Larry's "Crack the Skull." I want everyone here to know how held I feel in this brand-new community. You are some of the prominent "yous" I'm talking about in this poem. :)
Oh my God, reading this makes me laugh and smile so much! It would take a full-length sonnet to fully sing the praises of this poem, but I love all the tiny details and the repetition of "you, and you, and you" and of course also the fact that "Elizabeth Gilbert" constituted her own entire line, as she should. We just got a couple inches of snow, so I suspect it will be a few days before I encounter any fully grown conspecifics, which is its own rather interesting sort of hermitude.
The communal hermit in me bows deeply to the communal hermit in you, Rebekah! I felt very "seen" by your wonderful poem. I have deeply meaningful, far-flung connections, but nearly none in my physical locale. It's truly strange to realize the absence of "conspecific" (love this word) encounters, save for those genial drive-bys. The delicious details you included about your connections made me feel like I had seats in your cafe and your pub, and a very clear picture of your cozy, companionable life. Thanks for holding open the door of space time for me, too. <3
I love this, Rebekah! You've so beautifully articulated the meaning that communities like this one can hold, how safe and cozy and held they can make you feel. I'm glad to share this space with you.
Rebekah!!! Oh my goodness! This is a wonder piece! The word "conspecific," completely new to me, is worth reading all by itself. Your last two lines, like Elizabeth Gilbert herself, is pure beauty and art:
"It was frigid out, but I held
open the door of space-time
for you, and you, and you
as best I could.
Your hearts poured in
like so many valentines. "
Thank you for holding the door open for us. You are a gem.
Oh wow, Keith. This had me in tears. There are so many powerful and evocative lines - "my eyes red with fury but dry as the desert" . . . "where his soul had unfastened" . . . and all of those questions you pose directly to your dad. I love the absolute, set-in-stone response you received . . . "GOODENOUGH." More than good enough, I would say. Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece of yourself, your grief, and your healing.
Thanks so much, Lisa. That moment in the cemetery was really one of those divinely choreographed moments. The universe is endlessly creative and loving...I just miss it sometimes. So glad I caught it that day.
"Do you accept me, now that you’re free from the bondage of yourself?" What an absolutely stunning sentence. Thank you for sharing your words, your grief, your pain, and your absolute gift of writing.
Thanks so much, Kari Lynne - I really appreciate your kind feedback. My dad and I had a very complicated relationship, and writing has been such a great way to process some of the complexity.
Keith, you pack such a journey into the winding paths you haunted that day. The idea of hovering above your emotions, realizing your truths "incompletely, distantly" is so powerful -- and then you show us how that looks, you tapping into only one portion of your emotional landscape after your dad's passing... and then getting hit over the head by Mystery and finding that deeper place. This is so beautiful and raw. Thank you for letting us in to this story.
Thank you, Rebekah. You said it perfectly that I tapped into only one portion of my emotional landscape. Thanks be to Mystery for finding a way to tune me into additional frequencies! I really appreciate your comments. Thanks for seeing me.
This is so deeply moving, Keith. I hope you don't mind that I also read your essay shared below. I'm not estranged from my parents, but we've had our share of wedges in our relationship, and the two we can't seem to work out are the differences in our political views, and my queerness. I wonder sometimes if there will be any change before I lose them, and I could feel my own resentment as I read your poem and essay. I'm glad you've found some healing, and I'm sorry you had to. ❤️
Thank you, A. I really appreciate you reading not only my poem, but also my essay. I'm so sorry (and yet also comforted, selfishly) to know that you've felt the pain and distance that your identity (including political identity) can create with parents. Although I'm so grateful to have many folks in my life who hold beautiful, accepting space for me to be a fully authentic human being, their ability to do so with ease made it even harder to accept that my family could not. It helps me to think about how the universe can hold space for all of it, even when I don't understand. All the pain, all the sorrow, all the lost potential. <3
This is a remarkable and powerful poem, Keith. Your poem is lyrical and flows so sweetly in its beauty, and moves into the hard places of grief, of what was lost, what was never known, and what never will be. I was right with you as you speak of the rage and tears that never flowed in the aftermath of death. I, like you and many of us, had a complicated and often very challenging and painful relationship with my dad, and so much of the grief relates to what never was. I am even more inclined to have that coffee or tea with you one day! In the meantime, years ago, when my father was still alive, I encountered this remarkable poem by Dick Lourie at the end of the move "Smoke Signals". It is called "Forgiving our Fathers?"
Larry, thank you very much for your feedback, for sharing a little of your own experience with dad-disconnect, and for this Dick Lourie poem, which I feel sure must have struck a chord in so very many over the years. It's been about 2.5 years since my dad died, and I find that I continue to thaw out and feel compassion for him, yet I still get spikes of resentment every now and then. I hope we get to have that coffee/tea some day. Until then, knowing that you identified, I want to share an essay I wrote after my dad died - it was the first piece I succeeded in placing somewhere. https://www.discretionarylove.com/whose-shoes-to-fill-keith-aron/
Thank you so much for sharing this painful yet beautiful essay. I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to still maintain a relationship with a father who rejected your very identity so often. What a gift to be able to put that pain into words that can help others.
Thank you Keith for sharing your essay. It is exceptional. You are a gifted writer. And you have the gift to be able to see the challenges and struggles of your own experience in ways that you can beautifully share with others. The powerful descriptions of your own story is engaging; and you open up spaces for so many of us to relate and identify with and to. You are a blessing to read.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful essay, Keith. This line really gripped me: “The connection that had seemed so sure in the context of my false persona disintegrated in an instant.” I’m so glad you moved forward in your truth, even if it meant losing the semblance of smooth sailing with your dad. At the same time, your essay made the love between the two of you palpable -- his treasuring your toddler shoes until his death (and these were muddy worn adventuring shoes, not ballerina slippers or anything like that), your looking after him on his driveway jogs, his wearing your red Converse gift shoes for 20 years. You brought us fully into the complexity of the relationship -- in a way that didn’t pull punches, but also held your dad with compassion, considering the balance of his experiences and norms.
Thanks so much, Rebekah. I deeply appreciate these reflections (and thank you for taking the time to read my essay). I tried my best to convey the truth of my experience, which was complicated, without character-assassinating my dad (I have reserved that mostly for my journal and for therapy - that poison needed to be drained before I could write this piece). Thank you for letting me know that's how it landed for you.
Thank you for sharing your poem with us, Lisa. I feel honoured that you were inspired by my poem, and glad that this experience is in your past rather than your present.
My poem today comes with a CW: pregnancy loss, and I'm not sure I can explain how it was inspired by Rebekah's poem (Bravo Uniform November - Bravo Uniform November), except to say that it's about loss/grief.
I’m struggling to find words to articulate all the feelings that your beautiful poem stirs in me! I appreciate how you use simple, straightforward language to such potent effect. I think more flowery language would have diluted your poem. Instead, you used everyday speech - carefully chosen, artfully woven - and led me right into a bodily experience of grief . . . which is always part of healing, isn’t it? To just feel the loss (even if we can’t yet articulate what the loss is) all the way. Thank you so much for sharing this, A!
Thanks for unzipping your loss and letting us in...wow. "I still didn't fully understand exactly what I was mourning" - this is so relatable. It's been my experience (still is) of so many things over my so-far lifetime. There is so often a lag between impact and integration. We can only safely process a little at a time. Your intentionality in naming the child you lost is so moving....and what an achingly beautiful ending line.
Thank you, Keith. I'm grateful to have been able to do a lot of healing in other areas of my life before this happened so that I was able to sit with the grief the way I needed at the time, to take those first steps into integration.
A, this is so beautiful and heartbreaking. You bring us fully into your grief -- a laugh turning into a sob, tears shed on dirty laundry, your process of trying to understand the full arc of what you were grieving, and finally choosing a name. There is so much perspective in this poem, and it’s clear you had to journey to get there. Thank you so much for sharing. RIP Salem. ❤️❤️❤️
A., this is a remarkable poem and the depth of emotion it conveys transcends time and space. Thank you for sharing so deeply and honesty. That you are able to take a real lived experience of loss and grief and create this beautiful work of art is a shining testimony to your journey, resilience and spirit. Your poem is one of the most beautiful glmpses into grief that I have encountered, and like so much of what you share, inspires me to look more closely at my own grief and loss. You are a blessing, A.
Oh, A....what beautiful words for such a difficult loss. And the very concept of naming your grief is almost revolutionary to me. We should all name our grief.
It feels like a thousand poems rushed to my mind, none able to come forth onto the page. I read the beautiful poems here, again and again, holding all the grief and loss and feeling the relisence, courage, hope and restoration in them. The dearness of this MLk day to me, my life and my dreams, came from and center, looking back at the beginnings of a life from the back end of the same life. I tried a prose poem that may not be a poem at all, but the gracious space Lisa creates and you all affirm made that distinction unimportant.
Dreams
A nine year old boy, standing behind the couch in our small family room, watching my parents watching you on that tiny television. Their words of derision and disgust drowned out by the power in your words, a truth that rose up from sacred ground, a voice promising a new day, a new dream. Too young to understand the complexity of your insights, but just old enough to hear the cadence of your words, the lyrical swing of your oratory turning the whole world into a poem. A decree of a dream, a hope beyond hope for light where none had existed, justice where oppression had ruled, love where only hate had taken root. I wanted to dream that dream.
Those next few years, where each day seemed a battlefield, and the whole world seemed on fire, I listened to you wherever I could. All the adults around me warned of your danger, the radical nature of your dreams, the threat of your revolution of values that led us to a promised land. My inner wisdom compass told me which voices to trust. I wanted to dream that dream.
Then they came with news of death, a murder to be exact. And the whole world exploded like the beginning of time. Tears flowing like the rivers into an ocean with no bottom. A few weeks later, more death, more violence, as if bullets could extinguish the flames of the dreams. Emotions erupting as a volcano of centuries of denial and death came into view. Leaders stunned silent, or offering words that ignited the sparks of hate, never the flames of hope. But I still remembered the dream.
Fifty years and more on, and many dreams have come and gone. I still hear your voice from 1963, inviting a little white southern boy into a beloved community, to walk from sea to sky that we all might be free. I still hear your voice from 1968, the night before you died, shining forth the view from the mountaintop. There is a promised land, unfolding like the beauty of a blue moon night, moving gently from the dream. I am ready to live that dream.
Like Keith, I was struck by many lines of your beautiful poem and most especially by this gorgeous line - "the lyrical swing of your oratory turning the whole world into a poem." What courage and clarity you had even as a young child to see the world differently than the adults around you . . . and how hard and painful that must have been. I'm so glad that your loving heart came through intact and that you're sharing your experiences with us through your poetry!
Thank you Lisa, for your ever kind and insightful comments and reactions. They make it worth struggling to write the poems! Growing up in the south was beauitful and hard, and the world always seemed so full of contrasts--the myth and lived reality of southern hospitality and friendliness with the overt, covert and deep racism. The spectacular natural beauty and the explicit, vivid plundering and pilaging of the land, sea and sky for profit and self interest. Huge working farms, many once plantations, spectacular homes and tree lined streets with tar paper shacks, dilapidated homes, abandoned main streets and boom and bust communities. SOme of us stand on one part of our large high school protesting the Vietnam war, and the ROTC drilling in another. There did not seem to be many adults providing wisdom, insight, context or a space to share our fears, our dreams or our questions.
Enough said--except a thank you to you for the way you open up the hearts, minds and spirits of others, including me.
Larry, this is a really, really beautiful prose poem!! I read so many of the lines a few times, savoring them for their heart and their art. I love this line, especially: "the lyrical swing of your oratory turning the whole world into a poem." I also love knowing (unsurprisingly from what I am getting to know of you) that your little boy body managed to carry such a big and loving heart through the world, then over so many years, never letting MLK's dream die or slip away. The imagery of nature you invoke, your words and his, opens all my senses as I read. Thank you again, for your heart and your art.
Thank you Keith for your kind and generous note, and reading of this. Martin Luther King, Jr, has been influential to me in my life and work, in part because he never pretended to be perfect, and his growing edges are apparent when we explore his work in the decades that followed. Thank you for your kind and dear spirit and heart.
Thanks for this extra context about Dr. King, Larry. In reflecting on what you said about his lack of pretense, I think that's true for me, too. The public figures I seem to admire most (and I hasten to add that there aren't many) are those who stand tall, firmly planted not only in the truth of their convictions, but also in the truth of their fallibility and humanity.
“There is a promised land, unfolding like the beauty of a blue moon night, moving gently from the dream.” This and so many other scenes/lines from your poem gave me the chills. And even more importantly, gave me hope! Thank you, Larry! Beautiful writing, beautiful tribute to MLK, and beautiful insight into you. ❤️
Ok, first off all - wonderfully written as always. And if I may pontificate - without falling over my words. I always am quite astounded when I come across people of - ahem - my parents' generation (I would venture to guess - they were born in 1950) who are so open minded and were so attuned to the civil rights movement as it was happening. Although my parents came a long way from the mindset they grew up with in the 1960s - I have made my mother quite the liberal now - I cannnot imagine how difficult it must have been to speak up and out against injustice then when the voices around you screamed fear, mistrust, and ignorance. You seem like a really great person!
Thank you Karri, for your wonderful comment and kindness. I am a teeny bit younger than your parents, born in 1954, the year of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ruling segregated schools unconstitutional. It took alomost 20 years for Virginia to fully comply, even longer for some other southern states. I have been an independent minded liberal, progressive, leftist, since I came to consciousness. My parents and extended were not, with the exception of my older brother and some beloved cousins. I worked on a university campus for 22 years and always worked with younger folk, including coaching for almost 35 years. I have been challenged, educated, enlightened and inspired more times than I can ever know by young people throughout my life, even when I was one!
I am glad your parents have you! Thank you for your wonderful way of relating and being in this space and the world.
Larry, thank you for sharing this perspective with us today. I often find it hard to make sense of historical timelines and it's easy to forget how recent these events really are. And I know that so many of those who were alive then (and may speak positively of him now) were like the adults who surrounded you when you were a child. It makes my heart so happy to think of you as a child, staring in wonder at the television and trusting your inner knowing.
Thank you very much, A. In the chaos of the times, so many adults, coaches, teachers, parents, administrators, spiritual leaders, local leaders, seemed unable to provide what so many of us could have appreciated, a kind listening ear, gentle counsel and support, and hope for a future that is possible. Thankfully, I did have some wonderful teachers who cared, who opened their hearts and who were good role models. I am so glad that young folk today have someone like you to inspire them.
Lisa that was heart wrenching to read and also infuriating. Thank you for sharing this raw and personal look into what must have been terrible, hurtful, and exhausting experiences. Much love.
Such a powerful poem...both a calling out and a calling in, indictment and self-revelation. The choice to address it to "you" made it all the more powerful and intimate, like you were allowing the reader to read a private letter that was really, really relatable. It was so generous of you to start the "epistle" in the way you did, and so self-aware to end the way you did. You managed to capture the immediacy of the emotion with the perspective of time gone past. So good.
Thank you so much, Keith! And I agree with A that you have a talent for articulating what resonates with you in a poem or how it achieves its impact. I always learn something from your comments!
I love reading insights like these. Sometimes there are angles I can't quite make out about why I love a poem, and everyone here seems to have such a gift for lighting on them.
Lisa, your writing typically leaves me stunned into silence by its beauty and raw power, and the wonderful way you weave words together. The silence comes in part from that feeling I have when I have encountered something true and powerful, sacred and soulful, beautiful and real. Your ability to reach into hearts, minds, spirits and soul is transcendant. Thank you for sharing this poem, for the you who has navigated these strange waters, and for the spcace of grace, love and peace you have created here.
Thank you so much, Larry! I felt a little uncomfortable sharing this poem - maybe it’s always easier to share work that reflects on a time in our lives when we shone our brightest, or times when all the people around us showed up as gorgeous and good . . . but if I confine myself to that, I know I’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities for creativity and healing. So I guess I’m just diving right in with all my humanness (past and present) along for the ride. It means so much to me that this is such a safe space to share, and your generosity is a big part of that.
The rawness of the poem struck me today as well. I think the format of prose poetry was a perfect choice for what felt like a closed chapter of a story. Stunning, indeed.
Thank you so much, A! I felt a little vulnerable sharing. I’m such a glass-half-full girl that it can feel tough for me to share something dark or complicated without putting lots of pretty bows and spoonfuls of sugar on it.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting on the essay. I suppose the silver lining of having difficulties with my dad was the way in which it has allowed me to see that emotions I used to think of as mutually exclusive can exist all at once and to really scrutinize my dualistic thinking (and feeling). I put the essay out there in the hopes that it might help someone else, so thank you for your kind and affirming words about that.
Ok, my poem is inspired by yours Lisa. Something I won't elaborate on and never have really shared publicly. (apologies for the language(
I often want to write about
The things you did
The pain you caused
The entire fucked up façade that was your family.
But even now after nearly thirty years
I fear retribution.
And I fear that my silence
Makes me somewhat complicit
In things you may have done since.
So few words, and yet they sent a chill up my spine (which I think is a sign of a great poem)! I'm sorry you had to go through whatever painful hell it was you went through and glad you're writing about it, even with the details left out. Maybe at the end of the day, what we most need to metabolize most are our own feelings about what happened (including the fear), more than the details of the events themselves?
This is small but mighty, Karri Lynne! The fear that your silence makes you complicit is so relatable. How often have I colluded in my own gaslighting (and sometimes scapegoating) by remaining silent in situations where the narrative being offered is wildly different than my lived experience? Thank you for sharing.
So brave to share this, Karri Lynne. It is so stark and powerful. Thank you.
This made my heart pound. I know this feeling all too well, and I'm sorry for whatever way that you were harmed. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this poem, Karri, a testament to your resilience and courage as you navigate through the pain. Our silences, in so many realms and so many contexts, invariably leads to wondering "what if" when we face the consequences wrought by those who exploit such silence. It seems to me that all we can manage at times is silence, until we find a way to be a part of, as Thomas Merton callls them, "raids against the unspeakable." I am so grateful you are here.
Thank you all for your kind comments. I will say that this was a situation from when I was a very young adult that I got out of after a few years. And it was more about emotional manipulation / coercive control but other people were affected in much worse ways. I walked away, cut ties, and it all seems like a dream rather than a memory sometimes.
I love the idea of poems flowing "into the space between writer and reader" and taking on shapes uniquely fit to our experience! And I love your brave poem, Lisa. Thank you for sharing!
The poem I felt most inspired to interact with today was Larry's "Crack the Skull." I want everyone here to know how held I feel in this brand-new community. You are some of the prominent "yous" I'm talking about in this poem. :)
You Might Say I’m a Communal Hermit
I realized yesterday, and had to
do the math to convince myself
that I hadn’t had a face-to-face
encounter with a conspecific
for a full week. There had been
genial drive-bys: waving at my
neighbor who plows our road,
waving at the truck that passed
me yesterday on my subzero walk
(no faces there – cab windows
tinted and my visage compressed
into a frosted slot just wide
enough for eyes)
But my home is a firelit
coffee shop by day, village pub
by night, and while I shared no air
this week with you, or you, or you
we warmed each other across
phone lines and satellites
through every kind of app
my voice scratchy from talk, my
thumbs well worked. We shared
music and cinema, poetry, recipes,
sun signs, workout tips. We played
games, interpreted dreams, held
political meetings, and fawned
over our keynote speaker,
Elizabeth Gilbert.
It was frigid out, but I held
open the door of space-time
for you, and you, and you
as best I could.
Your hearts poured in
like so many valentines.
Oh my God, reading this makes me laugh and smile so much! It would take a full-length sonnet to fully sing the praises of this poem, but I love all the tiny details and the repetition of "you, and you, and you" and of course also the fact that "Elizabeth Gilbert" constituted her own entire line, as she should. We just got a couple inches of snow, so I suspect it will be a few days before I encounter any fully grown conspecifics, which is its own rather interesting sort of hermitude.
The communal hermit in me bows deeply to the communal hermit in you, Rebekah! I felt very "seen" by your wonderful poem. I have deeply meaningful, far-flung connections, but nearly none in my physical locale. It's truly strange to realize the absence of "conspecific" (love this word) encounters, save for those genial drive-bys. The delicious details you included about your connections made me feel like I had seats in your cafe and your pub, and a very clear picture of your cozy, companionable life. Thanks for holding open the door of space time for me, too. <3
I loved this!!! It describes perfectly that feeling that can be had when we get to know others in an online community.
I love this, Rebekah! You've so beautifully articulated the meaning that communities like this one can hold, how safe and cozy and held they can make you feel. I'm glad to share this space with you.
Rebekah!!! Oh my goodness! This is a wonder piece! The word "conspecific," completely new to me, is worth reading all by itself. Your last two lines, like Elizabeth Gilbert herself, is pure beauty and art:
"It was frigid out, but I held
open the door of space-time
for you, and you, and you
as best I could.
Your hearts poured in
like so many valentines. "
Thank you for holding the door open for us. You are a gem.
Okay, I just wrote this after being inspired by the close-to-the-bone grief portrait A. offered in their poem today:
How often
Have I hovered above
my emotions,
disembodied and disenfranchised
my experience unclaimed,
my truth incompletely, distantly realized?
So often.
But then there are times,
when Mystery
finds a workaround
to pull me back home to myself.
Like the day my dad died,
when I raged at him,
my eyes red with fury but
dry as the desert.
I haunted winding paths
through
the cemetery at the end of my street
some 500 miles north
of where his soul had unfastened.
Pleading, demanding,
Praying, ranting
Do you accept me,
now that you’re free
from the bondage of yourself?
Can you finally manage
to speak my name,
use the right pronouns?
Bitterness clotted my throat,
choking me to a standstill.
Pulled to my left, as if
someone had called my name,
my glare settled on a headstone I’d never
before noticed, engraved with reply:
GOODENOUGH.
The clot, the dam could not withstand
the power of those letters and,
in an instant, burst with sweet release.
Tears of sorrow flooded the parched ground
of longstanding hurt then
slowly,
patiently
seeped into the oasis of my heart.
Oh wow, Keith. This had me in tears. There are so many powerful and evocative lines - "my eyes red with fury but dry as the desert" . . . "where his soul had unfastened" . . . and all of those questions you pose directly to your dad. I love the absolute, set-in-stone response you received . . . "GOODENOUGH." More than good enough, I would say. Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece of yourself, your grief, and your healing.
Thanks so much, Lisa. That moment in the cemetery was really one of those divinely choreographed moments. The universe is endlessly creative and loving...I just miss it sometimes. So glad I caught it that day.
"Do you accept me, now that you’re free from the bondage of yourself?" What an absolutely stunning sentence. Thank you for sharing your words, your grief, your pain, and your absolute gift of writing.
Thanks so much, Kari Lynne - I really appreciate your kind feedback. My dad and I had a very complicated relationship, and writing has been such a great way to process some of the complexity.
Keith, you pack such a journey into the winding paths you haunted that day. The idea of hovering above your emotions, realizing your truths "incompletely, distantly" is so powerful -- and then you show us how that looks, you tapping into only one portion of your emotional landscape after your dad's passing... and then getting hit over the head by Mystery and finding that deeper place. This is so beautiful and raw. Thank you for letting us in to this story.
Thank you, Rebekah. You said it perfectly that I tapped into only one portion of my emotional landscape. Thanks be to Mystery for finding a way to tune me into additional frequencies! I really appreciate your comments. Thanks for seeing me.
This is so deeply moving, Keith. I hope you don't mind that I also read your essay shared below. I'm not estranged from my parents, but we've had our share of wedges in our relationship, and the two we can't seem to work out are the differences in our political views, and my queerness. I wonder sometimes if there will be any change before I lose them, and I could feel my own resentment as I read your poem and essay. I'm glad you've found some healing, and I'm sorry you had to. ❤️
Thank you, A. I really appreciate you reading not only my poem, but also my essay. I'm so sorry (and yet also comforted, selfishly) to know that you've felt the pain and distance that your identity (including political identity) can create with parents. Although I'm so grateful to have many folks in my life who hold beautiful, accepting space for me to be a fully authentic human being, their ability to do so with ease made it even harder to accept that my family could not. It helps me to think about how the universe can hold space for all of it, even when I don't understand. All the pain, all the sorrow, all the lost potential. <3
This is a remarkable and powerful poem, Keith. Your poem is lyrical and flows so sweetly in its beauty, and moves into the hard places of grief, of what was lost, what was never known, and what never will be. I was right with you as you speak of the rage and tears that never flowed in the aftermath of death. I, like you and many of us, had a complicated and often very challenging and painful relationship with my dad, and so much of the grief relates to what never was. I am even more inclined to have that coffee or tea with you one day! In the meantime, years ago, when my father was still alive, I encountered this remarkable poem by Dick Lourie at the end of the move "Smoke Signals". It is called "Forgiving our Fathers?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0RgMcB8zc
FORGIVING OUR FATHERS
How do we forgive our fathers?
Maybe in a dream…
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often,
Or forever, when we were little;
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage,
Or making us nervous,
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all?
Do we forgive our fathers for marrying
Or not marrying, our mothers?
For divorcing,
or not divorcing,
our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses,
Or warmth,
or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing,
Or leaning,
For shutting doors,
For speaking through walls,
Or never speaking,
Or never being silent?
Do we forgive our fathers in our age,
Or in theirs;
Or in their deaths,
Saying it to them,
Or not saying it?
If we forgive our fathers,
What is left?
Dick Lourie
Larry, thank you very much for your feedback, for sharing a little of your own experience with dad-disconnect, and for this Dick Lourie poem, which I feel sure must have struck a chord in so very many over the years. It's been about 2.5 years since my dad died, and I find that I continue to thaw out and feel compassion for him, yet I still get spikes of resentment every now and then. I hope we get to have that coffee/tea some day. Until then, knowing that you identified, I want to share an essay I wrote after my dad died - it was the first piece I succeeded in placing somewhere. https://www.discretionarylove.com/whose-shoes-to-fill-keith-aron/
Thank you so much for sharing this painful yet beautiful essay. I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to still maintain a relationship with a father who rejected your very identity so often. What a gift to be able to put that pain into words that can help others.
Thank you Keith for sharing your essay. It is exceptional. You are a gifted writer. And you have the gift to be able to see the challenges and struggles of your own experience in ways that you can beautifully share with others. The powerful descriptions of your own story is engaging; and you open up spaces for so many of us to relate and identify with and to. You are a blessing to read.
Thank you for reading and for your supportive, affirming feedback, Larry. I deeply appreciate it.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful essay, Keith. This line really gripped me: “The connection that had seemed so sure in the context of my false persona disintegrated in an instant.” I’m so glad you moved forward in your truth, even if it meant losing the semblance of smooth sailing with your dad. At the same time, your essay made the love between the two of you palpable -- his treasuring your toddler shoes until his death (and these were muddy worn adventuring shoes, not ballerina slippers or anything like that), your looking after him on his driveway jogs, his wearing your red Converse gift shoes for 20 years. You brought us fully into the complexity of the relationship -- in a way that didn’t pull punches, but also held your dad with compassion, considering the balance of his experiences and norms.
Thanks so much, Rebekah. I deeply appreciate these reflections (and thank you for taking the time to read my essay). I tried my best to convey the truth of my experience, which was complicated, without character-assassinating my dad (I have reserved that mostly for my journal and for therapy - that poison needed to be drained before I could write this piece). Thank you for letting me know that's how it landed for you.
Thank you for sharing your poem with us, Lisa. I feel honoured that you were inspired by my poem, and glad that this experience is in your past rather than your present.
My poem today comes with a CW: pregnancy loss, and I'm not sure I can explain how it was inspired by Rebekah's poem (Bravo Uniform November - Bravo Uniform November), except to say that it's about loss/grief.
I named my baby-that-would-have-been,
that passed, as a painful period,
around the six week mark.
It's a strange thing to lose
a wanted pregnancy while
in the process of deconstructing
beliefs about religion and abortion.
When people found out, they said,
"sorry for your loss," but at the time,
I still didn't fully understand
exactly what I was mourning.
Still, I let myself feel it.
I cried with my husband on our couch
after I got the call confirming
what my body had already made clear.
I sobbed in the grocery store parking lot
a week later, after my mom or sister had
said something that made me laugh.
And when I realized a month had passed
as I was doing laundry in the basement,
I sat on the pile of dirty clothes
and let the tears fall freely.
We had spent months trying, but
I had spent years before that imagining
what my first baby might be like,
and at the sight of the positive test,
all of that imagining had become
distilled into the tiny clump
of cells growing
inside of me.
What I lost,
what I was grieving,
was all of that potential.
I named my grief "Salem"
because it means
"peaceful" and "complete,"
which is what I had wanted
for the baby I was expecting, but
it was also what I wanted --
what I needed to feel -- myself,
after watching the hopes I'd held
bleed out of me.
I’m struggling to find words to articulate all the feelings that your beautiful poem stirs in me! I appreciate how you use simple, straightforward language to such potent effect. I think more flowery language would have diluted your poem. Instead, you used everyday speech - carefully chosen, artfully woven - and led me right into a bodily experience of grief . . . which is always part of healing, isn’t it? To just feel the loss (even if we can’t yet articulate what the loss is) all the way. Thank you so much for sharing this, A!
Thank you! This community makes it easy to be vulnerable, and you lead in that so well.
Thanks for unzipping your loss and letting us in...wow. "I still didn't fully understand exactly what I was mourning" - this is so relatable. It's been my experience (still is) of so many things over my so-far lifetime. There is so often a lag between impact and integration. We can only safely process a little at a time. Your intentionality in naming the child you lost is so moving....and what an achingly beautiful ending line.
Thank you, Keith. I'm grateful to have been able to do a lot of healing in other areas of my life before this happened so that I was able to sit with the grief the way I needed at the time, to take those first steps into integration.
Healing as a gateway to space-holding for self. Yes - thank you for that framing. So resonant. <3
A, this is so beautiful and heartbreaking. You bring us fully into your grief -- a laugh turning into a sob, tears shed on dirty laundry, your process of trying to understand the full arc of what you were grieving, and finally choosing a name. There is so much perspective in this poem, and it’s clear you had to journey to get there. Thank you so much for sharing. RIP Salem. ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you, Rebekah! It felt like the right time. The processing definitely happened in stages, and I think this poem is just a new layer of it.
A., this is a remarkable poem and the depth of emotion it conveys transcends time and space. Thank you for sharing so deeply and honesty. That you are able to take a real lived experience of loss and grief and create this beautiful work of art is a shining testimony to your journey, resilience and spirit. Your poem is one of the most beautiful glmpses into grief that I have encountered, and like so much of what you share, inspires me to look more closely at my own grief and loss. You are a blessing, A.
Thank you, Larry. It's been almost 6 years now, and I'm glad to say that I did find that peace and wholeness.
That makes me extremely happy that you did. And I am very grateful to be a joyful reader of your work and story’.
Oh, A....what beautiful words for such a difficult loss. And the very concept of naming your grief is almost revolutionary to me. We should all name our grief.
Thank you, Karri, I agree! I didn't exactly think of it that way at the time, but what a gift to myself.
It feels like a thousand poems rushed to my mind, none able to come forth onto the page. I read the beautiful poems here, again and again, holding all the grief and loss and feeling the relisence, courage, hope and restoration in them. The dearness of this MLk day to me, my life and my dreams, came from and center, looking back at the beginnings of a life from the back end of the same life. I tried a prose poem that may not be a poem at all, but the gracious space Lisa creates and you all affirm made that distinction unimportant.
Dreams
A nine year old boy, standing behind the couch in our small family room, watching my parents watching you on that tiny television. Their words of derision and disgust drowned out by the power in your words, a truth that rose up from sacred ground, a voice promising a new day, a new dream. Too young to understand the complexity of your insights, but just old enough to hear the cadence of your words, the lyrical swing of your oratory turning the whole world into a poem. A decree of a dream, a hope beyond hope for light where none had existed, justice where oppression had ruled, love where only hate had taken root. I wanted to dream that dream.
Those next few years, where each day seemed a battlefield, and the whole world seemed on fire, I listened to you wherever I could. All the adults around me warned of your danger, the radical nature of your dreams, the threat of your revolution of values that led us to a promised land. My inner wisdom compass told me which voices to trust. I wanted to dream that dream.
Then they came with news of death, a murder to be exact. And the whole world exploded like the beginning of time. Tears flowing like the rivers into an ocean with no bottom. A few weeks later, more death, more violence, as if bullets could extinguish the flames of the dreams. Emotions erupting as a volcano of centuries of denial and death came into view. Leaders stunned silent, or offering words that ignited the sparks of hate, never the flames of hope. But I still remembered the dream.
Fifty years and more on, and many dreams have come and gone. I still hear your voice from 1963, inviting a little white southern boy into a beloved community, to walk from sea to sky that we all might be free. I still hear your voice from 1968, the night before you died, shining forth the view from the mountaintop. There is a promised land, unfolding like the beauty of a blue moon night, moving gently from the dream. I am ready to live that dream.
Like Keith, I was struck by many lines of your beautiful poem and most especially by this gorgeous line - "the lyrical swing of your oratory turning the whole world into a poem." What courage and clarity you had even as a young child to see the world differently than the adults around you . . . and how hard and painful that must have been. I'm so glad that your loving heart came through intact and that you're sharing your experiences with us through your poetry!
Thank you Lisa, for your ever kind and insightful comments and reactions. They make it worth struggling to write the poems! Growing up in the south was beauitful and hard, and the world always seemed so full of contrasts--the myth and lived reality of southern hospitality and friendliness with the overt, covert and deep racism. The spectacular natural beauty and the explicit, vivid plundering and pilaging of the land, sea and sky for profit and self interest. Huge working farms, many once plantations, spectacular homes and tree lined streets with tar paper shacks, dilapidated homes, abandoned main streets and boom and bust communities. SOme of us stand on one part of our large high school protesting the Vietnam war, and the ROTC drilling in another. There did not seem to be many adults providing wisdom, insight, context or a space to share our fears, our dreams or our questions.
Enough said--except a thank you to you for the way you open up the hearts, minds and spirits of others, including me.
Larry, this is a really, really beautiful prose poem!! I read so many of the lines a few times, savoring them for their heart and their art. I love this line, especially: "the lyrical swing of your oratory turning the whole world into a poem." I also love knowing (unsurprisingly from what I am getting to know of you) that your little boy body managed to carry such a big and loving heart through the world, then over so many years, never letting MLK's dream die or slip away. The imagery of nature you invoke, your words and his, opens all my senses as I read. Thank you again, for your heart and your art.
Thank you Keith for your kind and generous note, and reading of this. Martin Luther King, Jr, has been influential to me in my life and work, in part because he never pretended to be perfect, and his growing edges are apparent when we explore his work in the decades that followed. Thank you for your kind and dear spirit and heart.
Thanks for this extra context about Dr. King, Larry. In reflecting on what you said about his lack of pretense, I think that's true for me, too. The public figures I seem to admire most (and I hasten to add that there aren't many) are those who stand tall, firmly planted not only in the truth of their convictions, but also in the truth of their fallibility and humanity.
This is beautifully said, Keith. I am right with you.
“There is a promised land, unfolding like the beauty of a blue moon night, moving gently from the dream.” This and so many other scenes/lines from your poem gave me the chills. And even more importantly, gave me hope! Thank you, Larry! Beautiful writing, beautiful tribute to MLK, and beautiful insight into you. ❤️
Thank you Rebekah! What a nice reaction and comment. Your kindness and hopeful heart shine so strongly through these digital miles!
Ok, first off all - wonderfully written as always. And if I may pontificate - without falling over my words. I always am quite astounded when I come across people of - ahem - my parents' generation (I would venture to guess - they were born in 1950) who are so open minded and were so attuned to the civil rights movement as it was happening. Although my parents came a long way from the mindset they grew up with in the 1960s - I have made my mother quite the liberal now - I cannnot imagine how difficult it must have been to speak up and out against injustice then when the voices around you screamed fear, mistrust, and ignorance. You seem like a really great person!
Thank you Karri, for your wonderful comment and kindness. I am a teeny bit younger than your parents, born in 1954, the year of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ruling segregated schools unconstitutional. It took alomost 20 years for Virginia to fully comply, even longer for some other southern states. I have been an independent minded liberal, progressive, leftist, since I came to consciousness. My parents and extended were not, with the exception of my older brother and some beloved cousins. I worked on a university campus for 22 years and always worked with younger folk, including coaching for almost 35 years. I have been challenged, educated, enlightened and inspired more times than I can ever know by young people throughout my life, even when I was one!
I am glad your parents have you! Thank you for your wonderful way of relating and being in this space and the world.
Larry you are a gift and I am so glad I have come to know you in these forums!
Thank you Karri! Blessings to you! 🙏🏻
Larry, thank you for sharing this perspective with us today. I often find it hard to make sense of historical timelines and it's easy to forget how recent these events really are. And I know that so many of those who were alive then (and may speak positively of him now) were like the adults who surrounded you when you were a child. It makes my heart so happy to think of you as a child, staring in wonder at the television and trusting your inner knowing.
Thank you very much, A. In the chaos of the times, so many adults, coaches, teachers, parents, administrators, spiritual leaders, local leaders, seemed unable to provide what so many of us could have appreciated, a kind listening ear, gentle counsel and support, and hope for a future that is possible. Thankfully, I did have some wonderful teachers who cared, who opened their hearts and who were good role models. I am so glad that young folk today have someone like you to inspire them.
Lisa that was heart wrenching to read and also infuriating. Thank you for sharing this raw and personal look into what must have been terrible, hurtful, and exhausting experiences. Much love.
Thank you so much, Karri! Those were not the best years of my life, and yet if I hadn't lived them, I'm not sure who I would be right now.
I like the wisdom in this insight, Lisa. I am grateful for who you are now.
Such a powerful poem...both a calling out and a calling in, indictment and self-revelation. The choice to address it to "you" made it all the more powerful and intimate, like you were allowing the reader to read a private letter that was really, really relatable. It was so generous of you to start the "epistle" in the way you did, and so self-aware to end the way you did. You managed to capture the immediacy of the emotion with the perspective of time gone past. So good.
Thank you so much, Keith! And I agree with A that you have a talent for articulating what resonates with you in a poem or how it achieves its impact. I always learn something from your comments!
I love reading insights like these. Sometimes there are angles I can't quite make out about why I love a poem, and everyone here seems to have such a gift for lighting on them.
Lisa, your writing typically leaves me stunned into silence by its beauty and raw power, and the wonderful way you weave words together. The silence comes in part from that feeling I have when I have encountered something true and powerful, sacred and soulful, beautiful and real. Your ability to reach into hearts, minds, spirits and soul is transcendant. Thank you for sharing this poem, for the you who has navigated these strange waters, and for the spcace of grace, love and peace you have created here.
Thank you so much, Larry! I felt a little uncomfortable sharing this poem - maybe it’s always easier to share work that reflects on a time in our lives when we shone our brightest, or times when all the people around us showed up as gorgeous and good . . . but if I confine myself to that, I know I’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities for creativity and healing. So I guess I’m just diving right in with all my humanness (past and present) along for the ride. It means so much to me that this is such a safe space to share, and your generosity is a big part of that.
Thank you Lisa for your willingness to venture there. Your doing so inspires me to try and do the same.
The rawness of the poem struck me today as well. I think the format of prose poetry was a perfect choice for what felt like a closed chapter of a story. Stunning, indeed.
Thank you so much, A! I felt a little vulnerable sharing. I’m such a glass-half-full girl that it can feel tough for me to share something dark or complicated without putting lots of pretty bows and spoonfuls of sugar on it.
I struggle with that, too.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting on the essay. I suppose the silver lining of having difficulties with my dad was the way in which it has allowed me to see that emotions I used to think of as mutually exclusive can exist all at once and to really scrutinize my dualistic thinking (and feeling). I put the essay out there in the hopes that it might help someone else, so thank you for your kind and affirming words about that.