Oh, the burden of being a friend

to the strong

 

They ask only what we can give

knowing it will take

all that we have

 

And they always know

what they ask

so never fail to forgive

when we fail

before the end

 

Oh, the burden of being friend

to the strong

 

To know and not understand

the brilliance

we touch and yet do not

 

To see pity and true sorrow

in their eyes

when they see and know

how little we can do

 

To stand before a magic mirror

seeing ourselves clearly held

bound at the threshold

while beyond our reach

go the strong ones

striding into a world of possibilities

 

Yes, they know what little we can give

when ideals become reality

but they know, too, the greatness

of our most precious gift:

 

We will not refuse the burden,

the burden of loving the strong.

Wind whistles through bone

The flute of the long dead

Music from another time

When lost people danced here

Beside hearths now buried

Beneath the desert sand

 

I imagine I hear their voices

Their songs circling

Within my head

Melting my staid posture

I sway as if blown

By the whistling wind

But in truth, I dance

In this ancient space

Tolerance, even understanding,

can be won on the battleground of mind,

but forgiving does not come so easily.

 

There is always the anger and the pain…

pain at the loss of the treasure:

the once-dream of safety, of love,

a dream secured by innocence.

 

When anger still curls round and round

taunting in whispers:

“You were cheated, cheated”—

the heat electrifies the air,

rumbling like the far away thunder

of a storm that cannot tear itself

into mere wisps of nothing—

 

Forgiving does not come easily.

 

And fear remains unconvinced

by the years removed from harm—

for in a moment,

at an unexpected nuance

of voice or hand,

memory…

banished memory…flinches.

 

No, forgiving does not come easily.

Surrounded in the music of a metaphor

In the shimmer of a simile,

From allusion to alliteration

You will look for the child you knew.

Through the language of his poetry

You will find him.

 

Over the noise of the years

Beyond the person you were

Amid the moments redefined

You will see the child who was.

 

Overwhelmed by his pain

Undone by the retelling of days unrealized

Drowned in tears that should have found cause

You will come to know a stranger’s child.

 

Behind the unseen door where he hid away

All he could not share,

By the image in the mirror

Of the parent you might have been.

 

Through the language of his poetry

On equal ground

Forgiving each what he could not be

The two of you, parent and child, shall meet at last.

If I no longer see your

face, your sister’s face,

Your cousins’ face…

If all your family

Is gone from this

Place… If I no longer see your family

Name in a window,

On the

Placard above a store

Or on a corner street sign;

Nor in a list of addresses

Or phones

For this place…

 

If all of these things

Were true, perhaps

I might forget, or

Be able to let the memory

Be dormant,

Silent. Perhaps I

Might then not know

with every breath

your great, great, great

grandfather killed mine

and more, sent us

Into the night

without home, without food

without aid for

the sick, wounded, dying

 

With no trace

Of you or yours –

It might just be possible then –

And the words

‘hope’, even ‘peace’

might be some

Thing other than myth.

 

If your green valleys

And wheaten plateaus

Should wither

Like the parched

Wastelands of my found home…

If your rivers should

Hide too deep for you to find

In chiseled wells…

If in that place you should

In a season,

Lose home

Farm, town and roads

Till your hundreds

Or thousands

Are isolated, sickening

Without food, or

Buried beneath

Hills melted into mud…

 

If your factory furnaces

Have no fuel, your homes

No shade,

The money

You earned yesterday

Cannot buy one thing small

Today…

 

If you live too far

From the nearest medical aid,

Or where the doctors

And medicine are never enough

For the need…

 

If you wake hungry,

Work hungry and lie down

Hungry every night…

 

Perhaps if all this is true,

Perhaps then I will no longer

Hate you, hate you,

Hate you.