terrypetersen

True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.” (Oprah Winfrey)

What can’t be accomplished in reality, sometimes can be faced through poetry.

Facing the Darkness Under the Bed

As I sweep under my bed and touch

the darkness below the frame

I imagine going back into time

and watch my mom as her mother lies

on another bed. Twelve-year-old Mary Ann

cooks then washes dishes.

Her history textbook is opened

on the kitchen table. Ancient war dates fade,

battles with human losses,

each its own variation

of an untold Pyrrhic victory.

She hears a different kind of battle.

My mother as a young girl

longs to soothe the endless

cries of her mother

in labor for forty-eight hours.

Mama survives but delivers a

second dead baby. Mary Ann learns

to bury hurts as well, cover them

inside forgotten dreams. She leaves

the darkness under her bed

with the dust. Imagination,

it may be physically impossible.

Yet, I reach for the hand

of the twelve-year-old girl who will one day

give birth to me, and allow her

the gift of forbidden tears.

Perhaps then I can give

me full permission for

releasing mine.