Life Long Reno Project
As much as I love you, I cannot protect you from the truth.
Before you were taught to forget (I tried to protect you),
I helped you remember your birthright, your inheritance,
your beauty (before you understood judgment) and I wept
when they shamed you and criticized your gifts, was helpless
to help you as you moved away, disbelieving and as much as
I love you I cannot protect you from the way of things, the
randomness of loss, the searing heartbreak and the
shattering of dreams.
All that’s been broken gets mended somehow but my proof is
intangible, inscrutable, amorphous. We go on; a little bit wary,
a little bit brave, but those places are tender and hidden and
like a whacked shin on an unforgiving surface, the sudden pain
can take your breath away. Exposed, the un-gluing reminds you
of all the work you’ve done, all the work you have left to do, and
you wonder, no, you know, you’ll never be done, it’s a hole in a
wall you can’t spackle.
Some things can’t be covered up or over but do fade, in time, and
blend in with the overall brilliance of the decor and give it character
and grace and what it means will never be understood but in the end,
accept it, because the truth bleeds through, refusing to hold the spackle.
LBM 11/11/2022
