Jeremiah, this is so beautiful - I love the dissonant truth of how inevitable it is to fuck up your kids and the enduring parental love that can hold you above sorrow - the latter isn’t necessarily inevitable, but when it’s there, it’s a wonder to behold 🙏🏽
Similar themes running here--Just wrote a piece about my father (rough draft)--a mixed bag to be sure--and so glad that fathers and mothers (in this case mine specifically) didn't hold back in fear of not being perfect... Then I wouldn't have gotten to experience all their love woven through, as well.
My Papa’s Waltz
BY THEODORE ROETHKE
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
Jeremiah, this is so beautiful - I love the dissonant truth of how inevitable it is to fuck up your kids and the enduring parental love that can hold you above sorrow - the latter isn’t necessarily inevitable, but when it’s there, it’s a wonder to behold 🙏🏽
Similar themes running here--Just wrote a piece about my father (rough draft)--a mixed bag to be sure--and so glad that fathers and mothers (in this case mine specifically) didn't hold back in fear of not being perfect... Then I wouldn't have gotten to experience all their love woven through, as well.