IJMC - From Uncle Flip, With Love

I thought I would share one of my favourite poems with you folks...  This is
a different point of view to consider after fathers' day- one that deals
with a not-so-good relationship with one's father.  Seems to me, it explains
a lot about why these bad relationships continue, instead of those old
wounds healing -but that's just my interpretation [cued by the last line],
and you are encouraged to find your own.  (Mind you, this doesn't describe
my relationship with dear old dad- the only problem we seem to have is that
we don't see each other very often!)



forgiving our fathers
Dick Lourie

maybe in a dream: he's in your power
you twist his arm but you're not sure it was
he that stole your money    you feel calmer
and you decide to let him go free

or he's the one (as in a dream of mine)
I must pull from the water but I never
knew it or wouldn't have done it until
I saw the street-theater play so close up
I was moved to actions I'd never before taken

maybe for leaving us too often or
forever when we were little    maybe
for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous because there seemed
never to be any rage there at all

for marrying or not marrying our mothers
for divorcing or not divorcing our mothers
and shall we forgive them for their excesses
of warmth or coldness    shall we forgive them

for pushing or leaning for shutting doors
for speaking only through layers of cloth
or never speaking or never being silent

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



Be well
-UF