Hello,
This is Don Goey and what I am about to read for you is a poem from my book of poetry called Fishing for Fallen Light.
The poem I'm going to read is entitled Breaking Into Wholeness.
I wrote this poem years ago after finally coming to terms with forgiving something that for two decades I felt was unforgivable,
Which was the abuse I suffered growing up in the shadow of a cruel stepfather.
The poem is dedicated to my children and to their children and to Jim,
My stepfather.
When I was twelve years old,
I fell in love,
And all I wanted was to kiss her on the mouth.
One day I got to,
And it was sweeter than my imagination and higher than the tree I leaned against to keep my knees from caving in.
Walking to the baseball field that day,
I was the wonder of desire having fulfilled itself,
Alive with a kiss traced on my mouth,
A beginning metamorphosis.
That afternoon I was very good at baseball,
And going home at dusk was one cool mojo man,
Esteemed in dirt and sweat,
A spirit whom the gods had called by name,
A glory this world let pass,
A friend to every soul,
At one with everything alive.
That night there was to be a party,
And she would be there.
I enter the house unsuspectingly.
The room is dangerous.
My stepfather and my uncle sitting round the kitchen table,
Smoking cigarettes,
His drinkings getting out of hand again.
I'd hide myself,
But thin air's got no cover.
Where you been,
My stepfather scowls.
I conceal how much he frightens me.
Playing baseball is all I say.
My uncle taught me to play baseball.
He lights another cigarette,
Says nothing.
Get lost,
My stepfather scoffs.
I walk the endless distance to my room and keep an ear for each and every sound this monster makes.
I lock my door,
But I know this will only make him ugly,
So I unlock it.
I get my clothes and slip into the bathroom.
I wash my face,
Comb my hair,
And forget about him just enough to eye the handsome face that's going out tonight.
There's a darkness at the door.
It's him,
And there's no exit.
Look at this mess you made,
You dumbass moron.
There's an explosion in my ear.
A blow across my face that shakes my soul and jars it from my body.
He grabs me by the shirt,
Throws me out onto the street.
I run like hell,
Find a place to hide,
Burst into tears and cry until I'm empty.
This girl I kissed,
Who cares?
Baseball,
Who cares?
Something big,
It's all shit.
Some day,
I swear,
I'll kill him.
He was an immigrant,
Had seen hard times.
He was charming on the outside but mean to the bone.
An abundance of pain,
A scarcity of truth,
A salesman,
Come of age in the great white fifties and in no time he had it all.
A business all his own,
A fancy house,
A swimming pool,
A big blue boat,
And there were pretty women on the side and Mater Dees who called him by name.
But his life was built on sand,
Stacked far too high,
And one day it all fell down.
The boys from the bank with chains and locks strung lines across the entrance to his business,
Made foreclosure of the house,
Hauled off the furniture,
Took back the boat.
There were strange women on the phone late at night,
And angry frightened people at the door looking for their money.
But it was over.
There was nothing there to reap,
No place there to stand.
Only a ruined life etched in my mother's eyes and the rotten smell of booze at his table.
I was old enough by then to walk away,
And I walked,
As far away from him as I could get,
And I vowed,
My children will not suffer this.
But I was unconscious as the streets he'd thrown me out onto,
And in my house there were the times innocence had to defend itself,
Times my children flinched and withdrew from a descending cloud of mood and a facing rash of words.
For I was lost in time and homeless,
Dwelling beneath the sky of grief,
Raging at a full moon,
And yet still a father,
Filled with gifts and dreams and good intentions,
Searching for some kind of way to cross over.
One day my wife takes me aside and says,
I called him up.
I spoke to him.
He's living just across the river.
It's time for you to see him.
Please,
If not for you,
Then for the children.
Sometimes looking at a river makes a sigh inside a body.
Sometimes that sigh is like another country.
Sometimes it's like the gate that opens to your home.
Twenty years of time had flowed and the weary moon was asking,
Who are you to judge,
And what's there left to think?
He had climbed out of a bottle and joined AA.
They pulled him up from under and set him on his feet,
But he had nothing to his name,
No money,
No business,
No one to call his family.
And yet there was a trace of light around his broken face and hopeful eyes that looked to me to greet him as he opened up the gate and waved hello.
He was selling at some two-bit used car lot and though he worked it hard,
There really wasn't much to sell,
But it kept him going.
He wasn't well.
His circulation was completely shut from years of booze and cigarettes,
And soon he couldn't even cross the street without somebody's arm to hold him up.
The surgery nearly killed him.
He recovered just enough to go home and sit all day in his lonely cell.
On Sundays I would pick up lunch and go to see him,
And we would watch a football game or a movie or just sit and talk things over about my life,
My kids,
My dreams.
And I could feel him take me in and sense the happiness it gave him,
And I came to realize that there was love inside of him for me.
Sometimes the talk came round to him,
To his soul,
His God,
His death,
And there was more to it in him than I imagined,
And going home I would wonder,
How has this come to pass,
That my heart is peaceful and at one with his?
The four walls of his cell finally spit him back to work,
And soon thereafter he dropped dead.
The paramedics tricked his body back to life for a few days more,
But the last two days in ICU were crazy,
His toxic body,
His toxic past.
Sometimes I had to hold him down.
When he grew frightened he would say,
I made a mess of everything.
I threw it all away.
I hurt everyone I loved.
I made one worthless asshole of myself.
I would stand beside his bed,
Inside his heart,
Within a space that had no boundary,
And I'd stroke his hair and pray that nothing of the past would follow him.
How is it that a human being can hold in the same moment two forces so seemingly opposed,
One refuting the other,
The horror and its harm,
The forgiveness and its peace,
A heart breaking into wholeness,
A life rising to an edge,
The rising falling through,
Falling away,
Revealing only what is true?
I look into his face,
His ashen face.
I look deeply,
Lightly,
And I fall inside his life,
Passing through all those years,
Through all these feelings,
And in the growing silence I can see the essence of his being softly shining through,
Blessing me.
