Thursday, August 10, 2006

A Letter to my Parents

You're angry again, I can tell.
Slience drips like muzzled rain,
too disgusted to fall whole.

I have learned to read pitch perfect
tones, scaled arpeggios, orchestral scores,
that strike chords of nothing.

Seeping misery percolates through
the breeze block bedroom wall.
Gazing at the blind ceiling I wonder
who offended who?
Now, frustrated rage
filters through-- one voice raised,
the weeping other discrete in it's crescendo.

Resolution waits for other rainy nights.

This isn't actually about my parents, more about the discussions and arguments that couples have and my own wondering about how much of our parents lives on in us, in those arguments. These kind of conversations always seem difficult to record or recreate, because if you were to record them, they probably wouldn't make much sense anyway, due to the circularity of most conversations.

13 comments:

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

Ah, yes! I have been here, far-away from Utah as you are in Ireland -- the silences are the same, the things not said hovering there in the dark. Good poem!

Cyn Bagley said...

You need no explaining. Very, very good.

Unknown said...

Caught this to perfection Cailleach - I love words that can bring back a feeling that you think that you have forgotten!

apprentice said...

A good one indeed. I like the idea of reding silence like music. I always felt like the emotional barometer in our house lol

mareymercy said...

Great details - a nice poem!

January said...

Love these lines:

"I have learned to read pitch perfect
tones, scaled arpeggios, orchestral scores,
that strike chords of nothing."

Your poem is pitch perfect!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Can't wait to read your poems and posts.

Catherine said...

I liked the music analogy too - thanks for visiting my blog

claireylove said...

i love the musical imagery - certain arguments as the motif of the symphony of our ongoing disputes?

Emily said...

I really liked your stanza with all the music imagery in it and how that corresponded with the next line's "Seeping misery..."

Kay Cooke said...

This is a great poem - once again. I love the 'muzzled rain'

Unknown said...

Thanks to all for visiting and commenting, all very much appreciated.
What I find interesting is how little we manage to communicate in words and how much interpretation we can find in the gaps and ellipses between communication.

I'm finding the Poetry Thursday exercises very good for honing up poems that I'd forgotten about and its very interesting to find the themes reflected so well by other people.

Great minds and all that!

Anonymous said...

Excellent - I love 'Silence drips like muzzled rain'.

Glad to have stumbled across your blog (via Eloise). I'll be back.

Unknown said...

Thanks Dick for dropping by!