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.
terrypetersen 