You Promised Me

"Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error." - Linus Pauling

Linus Carl Pauling (February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, peace activist, author and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century. Pauling was among the first scientists to work in the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology.

Pauling is one of only four individuals to have won more than one Nobel Prize. He is one of only two people awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields (the Chemistry and Peace prizes), the other being Marie Curie (the Chemistry and Physics prizes), and the only person awarded two unshared prizes.

"The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation -- or a relationship." - Deborah Tannen

Deborah Frances Tannen (born June 7, 1945) is an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Her major theoretical contribution is a poetics of conversation. She showed in her academic work that everyday conversation is made up of linguistic features such as repetition, dialogue, and imagery, that are traditionally regarded as literary.

Tannen has also written several general-audience books on interpersonal communication and public discourse. She became well-known in the United States after her book You Just Don't Understand - Women and Men in Conversation was published in 1990. It remained on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years (8 months at No.1) and was subsequently translated into 30 other languages.

I see the situation in my poem like a parent to a child perhaps, like a child knowing the patterns, when dad or mom just says shit to get past it, thinking they know the child will not remember after a bit, themselves reading the patterns, only this time the game is different, is no game at all. I have had this experience. Haven't you? This is one of the daily ways of love in the long haul. Love is full of stars and shattered stones, promises and shallow places. We can fly. We can fall. God willing we shall do this all together in the open. God willing we will love each other with full hearts today and tomorrow.

You Promised Me

You gave a promise.
You said I could pick a star
and we would go there
the moment, even
right now should I falter, fall,
and cut myself on
shards, your shattered stones.

You promised me this journey
thinking surely I
was not serious.

October 31, 2009 8:52 PM