peeny wally

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December 28, 2002

I’m always feeling guilty. I feel regret, remorse for things that happened over ten years ago. Some nights I stun myself, finding my strange little head suddenly in tears remembering some hurt I inflicted long, long ago and no way to apologize now. My friend Cary and I have talked about this a lot. She wondered if it wasn’t some sort of Catholic thing. She’s the same way, but her sister is not. I think it’s just different types of people. Some hang on to things that don’t matter and some do not. Some people are ruthless, some people live in the past, some people are neither.

I didn’t go home for Christmas, and even though I saw my dad just a month and a half ago, I feel bad. I missed seeing him and my brother a lot more than I expected. I had a lovely Christmas around wonderful people who made me feel right at home, but still.

I’m sad today because a girl I would loosely term “friend” is dead and I didn’t even know about it in time to make it to the funeral. When I talked to her just a week or two ago, I made a quiet promise to myself to become better friends with her.

And now I’m going to meet a good, old friend, one of my favorite people who I only get to see once a year. We’re going to eat at the Tamale House, drink some coffee, and I will make her laugh like a donkey at least once in the course of this morning.

***

Forget
Czeslaw Milosz

Forget the suffering
You caused others.
Forget the suffering
Others caused you.
The waters run and run,
Springs sparkle and are done,
You walk the earth you are forgetting.

Sometimes you hear a distant refrain.
What does it mean, you ask, who is singing?
A childlike sun grows warm.
A grandson and a great-grandson are born.
You are led by the hand once again.

The names of the rivers remain with you.
How endless those rivers seem!
Your fields lie fallow,
The city towers are not as they were.
You stand at the threshold mute.

Posted by pogo at December 28, 2002 10:51 AM