Feb. 5, 2008 - If ya have to explain your poetry, are you really a poet?
I am sure you all have at least one difficult relationship in your extended families. We are blessed with more than one on each side and usually this has a beneficial effect. Sometimes God uses those sandpaper people to rub off our own rough edges and that can certainly be a good thing. But sometimes the harm inflicted by the sandpaper people just shreds children to bits...and when that relation is a bit removed, one has no power to make things better, but can only watch the carnage unfold. Such has been our lot over the past year and a half or so and I find my reactions coming out in odd ways. Poetry, for instance. The last poem I recall writing was when the Challenger exploded just a month or so after a close friend was hit and killed by a car...that was, what? 22 or 23 years ago? So, it takes quite a bit to stir a poem out of me. DH's reaction to my poem, below, was that it would be shorter and more direct just to gauge out the readers' eyes and ears rather than making them read this depressing poem. He also stated that he would just excuse himself now and go douse himself in gasoline and set himself aflame on the driveway in reaction. Made me thankful once again that I married this man...his humor carries us through many a difficult time. For the record, I think the last line connotes, if not exactly hope, then the patient expectation of a resurrecting and just God.
Some explanation of the symbolism may be in order. The red lizard is from CS Lewis' The Great Divorce. Not only did our pastor preach on this a few weeks back, but it was also the subject of an opinion piece by Andree Seu in a recent World magazine article. You can read it here and here:
http://www.new-life.net/lewis.htm
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13642
Cheap grace is Bonhoeffer, of course and the quote that informs that for me can be found here:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/amoira/blessings/gracech1.htm
Shadow imagery is from Peter Pan and best explained here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/147228/shades_of_a_shadow_symbolism_in_jm.html
He floated in
Attached to the family we invited.
The shadow
That we cannot unstick
From us anymore than he
Can attach to himself.
His absence
Violent shattering;
His presence
Forgettable
But not forgotten.
He runs toward death.
His one act against passivity.
Declaring cheap grace
Treasure.
Answering to his new name,
Following the same red lizard.
Blind, he stabs.
Enslaved, he casts chains.
And thinks himself a man for having slayed
Children.
We are not to notice.
New love throws white sheets
Over dead bodies.
And asks us to look away.
We cannot.
We stitch his shadow to our heels.
We lift the sheets with
Love and await
The blinding of the Light.
