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Permanent Lessons, a poem by Eric Anderson
By moonflower | February 12, 2008
Today, I am sharing a poem that I first read in the Sun Magazine. From their website, “Founded in 1974, The Sun is a non-profit, ad-free monthly magazine that publishes an eclectic mix of personal essays, fiction, interviews, poetry, and photographs.”
I’ve been reading the Sun for about four years and it’s never failed to inspire me. I’ve loved many of the stories, essays, poems and interviews. This poem in particular knocked me off my cosmic post.
I emailed the magazine, they forwarded my email to Eric and I am happy to say that I am publishing it here with Eric’s permission. Not only is Eric a richly talented person, but a very kind soul with lots of supporters in his corner.
Real Mental is a very special place, my hope is that all who traverse around here can find the exceptional beauty and comfort in Eric’s poem that I have.
Never mind the mistakes Mother and Father made;
the first of them may have been the decision
to make you, to bring out of Eternity’s
Waiting Room
that thing you’ve been calling your soul,
plucked like some plush toy in the Big
Claw Game of their love.
O, how they dressed you in miniature
clothes, fed you human food,
brushed your hair, mussed it up, held you
in their hands like a bright souvenir.
And during those moments
of raw anger — when they channeled their lousy
childhoods through you and railed against
all the things they never had — they cursed you
with their wish for better lives, and you could
answer their inconsolable wanting only
with your tears, until at last
they spoke with tenderness,
or something like it,
and maybe didn’t completely regret
the few lustful thrusts
that launched you into your body.
Or so you thought
until the teenage years, when you
examined every incomprehensible gift
under the sterile spotlight of what you felt you deserved
and discovered not only
did they not know you,
but you could never know them, and so you left
as soon as possible, for a bus station, a campus, minimum
wage, the first available spouse, and it’s only now, after
some time spent before the blank stares of your own
little ungratefuls,
that you remember your mother and father and
how no one else ever stood on the front porch
and called your name into the dark.
Topics: moonflower, republished |
February 14th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I sent this poem to my oldest daughter and I wish I could have read it when I was younger.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
this is one of my favorite poems, as well.
i’m glad a broader audience gets to experience it!
z