Letting Go
.
Tell the truth of experience
they say they also
say you must let
go learn to let go
let your children
go
.
and they go
and you stay
letting them go
because you are obedient and
respect everyone’s freedom
to go and you stay
.
and you want to tell the truth
because you are yours truly
its obedient servant
but you can’t because
you’re feeling what you’re not
supposed to feel you have
let them go and go and
.
you can’t say what you feel
because they might read
this poem and feel guilty
and some post-modern hack
will back them up
and make you feel guilty
and stop feeling which is
post-modern and what
you’re meant to feel
.
so you don’t write a poem
you line up words in prose
inside a journal trapped
like a scorpion in a locked
drawer to be opened by
your children let go
after lived life and all the time
a great wave bursting
howls and rears and
.
you have to let go
or you’re gone you’re
gone gasping you
let go
till the next wave
towers crumbles
shreds you to lace—
.
When you wake
your spine is twisted
like a sea-bird
inspecting the sky,
stripped by lightning.
.
by Fay Zwicky
from Ask Me
University of Queensland Press, 1990