Thursday, July 15, 2010

Daily Reminder # 48


I've basically got nothing going on in my head again today. Best I can come up with is: One's perspective on almost anything makes a world of difference in how you see/experience it.

Today was Bastille Day (well, yesterday by the time this is posted). I have a friend who married a French Count. Some years back, not thinking much about it, I rather blithely wished her and her husband "Happy Bastille Day." She pointed out to me that for her husband's family it's a day of mourning, some of them having been beheaded. Life is strange indeed.

Here's a poem for today. If you stretch logic, you can apply it to the subject of perspective. My grandfather was profoundly cruel to my mother. He beat her, he demeaned her. Pretty much everyone but me was afraid of him. I don't know why I wasn't... or why he was kinder to me than to most. Life is strange.



My Grandfather's Shadow


My Grandfather's shadow has many faces
Some I have never seen
Loom darkly
In tales of times before my life was formed
Rage and rail at inner foes
Strike out at children he may have loved
But did not understand

My Grandfather's shadow has many faces
Which never smile
Which carry sadness in their eyes
For something lost or unremembered

My Grandfather's shadow
Would have cried, maybe, in other days
And not compressed his sorrow into balls of rage
Nor flung them indiscriminately at those he loved

My Grandfather's shadow has many faces
One of which loved me
As I him

- Katherine E. Rabenau


Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • bunny sighting
  • clean litter box
  • water
  • wonderful aromas
  • noses
  • friends and neighbors

I'm sorry about today's post. I'm falling asleep at my desk and I just can't get my brain to focus enough to make sense.


HAVE A GREAT DAY!

2 comments:

Evalinn said...

Nice thoughts, thank you for sharing! I think I´ll start posting what I´m grateful of as well, it´s such a good reminder!

Argent said...

My father was quite cruel to my mother, hit her, demeaned her, etc. Yet, to his friends, he was a fantastic bloke and everyone loved him. Weird what goes on behind closed doors. I was very afraid of him as a child and his shadow is still long even now (he's been dead since 1996). I'm grateful for much - not having to be afraid of him, for one. I liked your poem very much.


Feel free to come join the Poetry Bus - my challenge is here.