Arlene Corwin Poetry

              Revised View Of My Parents

A shorthand that I understand,

Essential for my peace of mind:

No more at war with mother’s dark, illogic mind,

No more preferring daddy’s kind

But weak, artistic presence, pleasantries.

Now, today, with daddy clearly

On his way, and mother nearly mad with sadness,

Locked in bed and impotent to run and help,

She eighty-four, he eighty-seven – at death’s door,

Three thousand miles away, derangement his finale.

Now that I know Arlene a bit,

The strengths and tendencies that show,

And some that don’t, I wish to forfeit

All the old complaints and sufferings,

Replacing them with grateful yea’s

For useful gifts and graceful traits,

(The freebees that I took for granted

Or assumed were shaped by ways

Of don’t know what.)

I know now never could have been

If mother had not been exactly

Who she was, and dad the same –

And that does not include my name.

View revised, not over-, undersized,

I’ve re-evaluated mom and dad.

It’s time now to apologize

For thoughts unkind: thoughts just plain bad,

Too analytical and double bound –

A blind unquestioning and double-binding paradox

That locks the brain into the box in which it runs around;

To reach the point where one no longer

Alternates between the passive and aggressive

To feel briefly stronger…

Gone to error’s happy land, left free of frenzied cleft.

Since the honeycomb of home is love,

And all roads lead to Rome,

It is love’s inauguration that has changed my view.

My children, will you need that too?

I do expect you will.

©Revised View Of My Parents 96.8.27.revised 07.4.6

Love Relationships; Mother Book; Pure Nakedness;

Arlene Corwin