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A Visitor
by Mary Oliver My father, for example, who was young once and blue-eyed, returns on the darkest of nights to the porch and knocks wildly at the door, and if I answer I must be prepared for his waxy face, for his lower lip swollen with bitterness. And so, for a long time, I did not answer, but slept fitfully between his hours of rapping. But finally there came the night when I rose out of my sheets and stumbled down the hall. The door fell open and I knew I was saved and could bear him, pathetic and hollow, with even the least of his dreams frozen inside him, and the meanness gone. And I greeted him and asked him into the house, and lit the lamp, and looked into his blank eyes in which at last I saw what a child must love, I saw what love might have done had we loved in time. |
Father and Son
I needed you to be a god. I needed you to rescue me from yourself. I needed you to be larger than a glass of scotch. I needed you to leap out from the depression. I needed you to look me in the eye and see me. Instead you were not a god. Instead you loved me in a human way. Instead you stumbled and slurred your words of apology. Instead my adolescence was cast adrift. We grew apart. You in deeper withdrawal. Me in increasing bitterness. ‘Till all we had was “How’s the weather?” and the next cute grandchild story. Over time, my life arced back towards you just as you body wore out. Finally, it was your return to childhood that brought me to adulthood. You left too soon or I arrived too late. Sometimes the final goodbye Contains every hello that did not happen. - Jose Enciso Abrazan (Reaching Out) - para mi papa Quiero escribir en el idioma de mi papa Corazon y el alma abrazan a traves espiritu y tiempo Puede esta cancion volver uno a otro I want to write in my Father’s tongue Heart and soul reaching across spirit and time May this song return one to the other - Jose Enciso |