Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Poem by Gregory Orr
The Man Who Killed His Brother
I do not know
how to spare him
from this wound
that still throbs
beneath the flesh.
Reminder of how it was,
that sudden rip of light,
that toppling,
the discovery
that nothing
could be undone, ever, act frozen in
time.
How he has lived with it,
so many days,
so many nights
stretching into manhood,
I do not know
how to spare him
from this wound
that still throbs
beneath the flesh.
Reminder of how it was,
that sudden rip of light,
that toppling,
the discovery
that nothing
could be undone, ever, act frozen in
time.
How he has lived with it,
so many days,
so many nights
stretching into manhood,
carrying it
like a weight of
stone fastened to his back,
always the sorrow,
always the sorrow,
unending grief,
ceaseless lamentation
of the heart.
Even now it is sobbing quietly,
still not knowing,
if it ever did,
how not to remember.
Dorothy Walters
May 12, 2008
ceaseless lamentation
of the heart.
Even now it is sobbing quietly,
still not knowing,
if it ever did,
how not to remember.
Dorothy Walters
May 12, 2008
(The man who accidentally killed his younger brother (in a hunting accident) was the well known poet Gregory Orr. I wonder how many of us still carry the pain of unintentional hurts we dealt to others at some time in the past.)
