Looking Over My Shoulder
by: Robert Bense
without wife, issueless, breath
turning frost
an easy slide out of happiness
I came here
to Key West
in winter, wanting to be closer
to moorings
--nearer the seashells' story
of chance--rather than stay there
for old explanations
of love and lust
repeated
a fish stench riding
the breeze, decay and fecundity
smell the same to me
irony is no help
everywhere I look I see
the broken reef
crowded with life
its swift tale
a sea exchange in minutiae
and Venus somewhere teasing
I stand in between
sand and water
listening, catch my breath
feel a summons
the tide running, sand
running out
I'd take up sailing
if I felt a need
but have found no harbor
I wait for a cloudless
afternoon
until sun and moon
once again together
grown old apart
reserve an intimacy for me.
My Response 7/10/02:
A Shoulder's View
A lifetime of loss
within a moment's
pass
I leave it all behind
onward I go in a mental
state of ease
leaving
learning from others mistakes
but mostly my own
and his
old pictures
don't even remind me
of times embraced
I am the family's refugee
I didn't turn away
from them
just saw a better path
learned to fly, because
I felt the need
I have a refuge
an addition closed dived gaps
making ends meet
from his blood
I see a father being a dad
and a love that I'm
vicariously reliving
now son and father
once again together
grown old apart
preserved an intimacy for me.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
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2 comments:
The only part I don't really get is:
an addition closed dived gaps
making ends meet
from his blood
Is this alluding to the relationship between the father and the son?
But aside from that I really liked it. I like how you pictured her as "not turning away from them, just finding a better path." It would be difficult for me though, not knowing what he thought of it..
My Father remarried and had a daughter. She's 7 now.
And for the first time I saw that glow and love in my Father's eyes. As she grew up, I saw my Father being a Dad to my little sister, and I vicariously experienced it.
With my little sister around, it brought my Father and I closer.
My sister is that addition. :)
Prof. Bensels poem felt so cold and final. I wrote my response to show that what I thought of my relationship with my Father was, changed unexpectedly. I guess I wanted to add a dimension of hope to it...
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