Discovery
Discovery - book excerpt
There's something in the day
You were invisible so learned to be obedient
Invisible and cute
Learned to agree and get along
Not like your sister or your
brothers no don't go there
Too painful; brother in ant heaven
Stung to death.
Too painful; yet did you
envy him at last? Your family
very smart
Family—and you, they did not know,
Were even smarter, you of college doctorate IQ but no;
"Stupid," they said. You said,
"Stupid me."
Love was very strange, elusive
Mostly all your life
Talked a story, tested men
Not enough it seems.
Old men like your father
Where you learned how they should be
Thought "we loved each other"
So of course accept so very little
Strange clever girl.
You who are generous, proud and loving
You've worked hard all your life
It was demanded of you; detail
picked like tweezers at a splinter
Endlessly the detail like a trail of fireflies
Avoiding the stream of stars above
Or nature's meadows,
See only detail and avoid the
bigger picture, oh my friend, because
It was so hurtful it will harm you it will pain
And you will be forgotten, given up,
Thrown away, and anyway
Look up amazed because there is a world out there
Full of stars and you are, oh my friend,
You are the sun.
That's the bigger picture. You are learning
Quickly with your intellect and heart
Christian soul so different from the other Christians
I have known,
and still the insects glow invisible to me
But you are--do you see it?
You are bigger than the world
A Jupiter, work hard
and damn the pain and little voices jealous
Of your progress, don't let love
Lie to you again and frighten you
Or hold you captive
Perhaps you, grown visible, they who knew you better
Discover they, like your mother,
Should have told you just how beautiful
You are.
Oh, little star
You nova, each baby dream so difficult and far
But death was never the solution
It might have made you totally invisible
At last they would have won; you lost
Or perhaps in new meadows then new starts
That might have been oblivion
Or fire bird bursting from the ash
How weary its new incarnation
endlessly how weary you
the endless wearing down of soul
No wonder you
Honored the invisible
Less painful than a rebirth as a star.
Or was it? Surely
biting stinging life still freedom's joy
Love's poultice through the placid fire of history
Reveals the education of a world
that heals while burning look around us
O my friend, you shine and sparkle!
Glow while those with petty mean persuasion
Prickle, sting and bite yet glorious
This day.
The Good Wife
The rebellious girl never left
The obedient mother
Like Shirley Valentine struck out
On oceans of fantasy but
making it to shore was
difficult and she resisted
the pull of the daughter's tide.
Too much she thinks she could
drive to Paris in her Thunderbird
with the top down and pretends
If one works hard and
keeps the house clean and
doesn't drink in front of neighbors
doesn't smoke or swear
And goes to church and
then the rebellious girl
the obedient mother
Will be rewarded perhaps with
Roses on her birthday
and she can…
She who deserves love
Will get it and that is what it is
For that is what
she craves most of all
But after that
come the questions
Bewilderment
Where have I gone wrong?
What has led to this?
And she traces the obtuse trails
While her friend says,
Would you like some cheese with that?
She who is the insecure and beautiful
most of all coming into a new decade
Her fingers don't understand
the internet
And the internet
The relationships of this century
Do not understand
The good mother and good wife.
The lack of understanding
is puzzling and hurts.
Where has she gone wrong?
The world has let her down
The rules have changed.
There is, however, after all
The top down on the Thunderbird
Winds of freedom beckoning
and Paris this year
Maybe next year
Greece.
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