'Poem selection' for the week -- "Double View Of The Adirondacks":
The mountains are at their theater again,
each ridge practicing an oration of scale and crest,
and the sails, performing glides across the lake, complain
for being out-shadowed despite their gracious
bows. Thirteen years in this state, what hasn’t occurred?
A cyclone in my spirit led to divorce, four books
gave darkness an echo of control, my slurred
hand finding steadiness by the prop of a page,
and God, my children whom I scarred! Pray they forgive.
My crimes felt mountainous, yet perspective
came with distance, and like those peaks, once keening
beneath biting ice, then felt resurrection in a vestige
of water, unfrozen, cascading and adding to the lake’s
depth, such have I come to gauge my own screaming.
The masts tip so far they appear to capsize, keeling
over where every father is a boat on water. The wakes
carry the memory of battles, and the Adirondacks
hold their measure. I am a tributary of something greater.
-- Major Jackson
This one also warrants listening to...here. Sometimes, a word about or from the author is...just helpful. In this case, a rather already compelling poem escalates its beauty with a word from the author:
“Fathering has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and yet, like many fathers I have led an imperfect life that preceded redemption and grace. This might prove, in the end, to be my greatest gift to my children.”
