Yearning For Change

Image from Lee Friedlander's work in the streets of New York

courtesy of Tess Kincaid at The Mag (Mag 99)

This one is an honest recounting of inner life in my own childhood.

Since Tess has written a similar poem I must wonder how many children of a certain age saw in Yul a father figure.

In my case the line of his face and his stern appearance plus his baldness added up to my dad in simple enough ways that allowed me to fantasize about another life. The travail in my life came from my own soul sickness (no matter where it came from) and then from social backwardness because of the isolation my illness caused.

My parents were decent and sophisticated folk, teachers, and they had my best interests at heart. They loved me as best they could. I yearned for a different set of circumstances, a feeling that persisted unrelenting from at least second grade on and came to a head in my adolescence. It peaked at the age of nineteen and nearly killed me.

How I survived my crisis, which involved yet another bout of illness at its start, a meningitis I caught at Fort Ord in 1964 is a complex story. I knew I was dying from age nineteen, a stress that lasted two years, and when I was "saved" at age 21 I knew that too, though I went mad at salvation's beginning. I went mad because the reframings caused by my inner changes were too radical to fit within my adolescent structure and I shattered in the key events. "All you need is love". Hah! Yes indeed, but beware.

In those days I could not talk about any of this. I did not have the words. In fact I have never really felt I have the words and don't still. Not really. That's why poetry and mythical story telling work best.

Yearning For Change

In all the other
ways I could think of to change
who or where I was
one was my dad as
someone else, as Yul Brynner.
My dad looked like him
to me though not to
others that much I must say.
I was a pale child.

January 8, 2012 1:23 PM