Could a Storm Forgive You?

 
My mother would thunder about my poor grades,
flood me with guilt about my absence of ambition.

When it was over she would caress my cheek,
her way to assure me that she loved me, although

she was not done storming,                    lightning
still flashing on the horizon of her pupils

*

My Father’s Zen

 
Learning from him did not come easy, whatever I grasped quickly he’d consider it a failure. There’s an old Zen story about an old teacher who instructs a young monk to sweep the temple before each ceremony—sometimes, for years. The lesson, I think now, that you must honor even dust.

My father’s poems
the teachings
of a broom.

*

Genealogy

 
I am the third generation
of fathers of sons

who speak through their mothers,

tied to the mast of a lineage
of inexplicable silences,

bowing to the barbed logic of gender,

willing to be accused of being aloof
when all it is

is gasping when I express affection,

pleading here’s your mother, instead,
of I love you, when they call.

***

(Featured image from Pexels)