Forgiving our fathers
On this Fathers’ Day . . .
On this Fathers’ Day, what if we decided to finally forgive our fathers
For being too soft or too hard
For always being there or rarely being present
For holding us too close or never holding us at all
For smothering us with love or withholding it as reproval
For wearing their feelings on their sleeve or expressing only anger
For being generous in their criticism but meager in their praise
For the perpetual safety net or ample rope to hang ourselves
For telling us what to do yet not sharing how to be
For saying “You can be anything,” or “You can’t make a living doing that”
What if, on this Fathers’ Day, we finally release these and any other real or imagined transgressions
And honor our fathers for the blessings they provided and for loving us the very best way they knew how
Written today in honor of my father, Mack Mulkey, who passed from his mortal form in 1996. Read a piece I wrote about him by clicking here.
* * *
The video below is from the final scene in the movie Smoke Signals as adapted from a poem by Dick Lourie, the poem that inspired my poem (above).
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?
Or 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 or speaking through walls?
For 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?
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
| TrackBack URI
You can also bookmark
this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos
This is a keeper, Bruce.
Comment by Michelle Smith — June 21, 2009 @ 9:12 am
I shared this poem in Circle with my close friends as part of our Summer Solstice ceremony. It was appreciated by all.
Comment by Michelle Smith — June 22, 2009 @ 7:55 am