REGRETS-a poem [Sa, 1-23-21]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

 

REGRETS-a poem   [Sa, 1-23-21]

Yes, I have a few

Like they invited Amanda Gorman

Instead of me

Of course, it helps if you are young

And beautiful, with an awesome

Hairdo, and a bright yellow coat

I have none of those poetical attributes

 

Yes, a few

Things left undone

I would have called upon the pandas

Rang their doorbell

Joined bouncing kangaroos

And racing zebras

If they had slowed enough for me

To enter into play and work

Along beside

 

Regrets for slights and pains

I foisted onto others, yes,

But they were not many

Nor grievous overlong

Yes, I know how

To accept forgiveness

But doesn’t that seem

So often an easy out?

It feels more right

That they should rankle

In the wrinkles

Of my brain

For a longer season

Of repentance and regret

 

But, regrets have faded

My life was full

Of love and joy and memories

 

It is now for others

That I look back in sorrow

For the friend who died too soon

The one with grandson caught

In a web of dope and crime

Another with a family so diseased

Sons and daughters alive but lost

I cannot even name them all

 

I know the ways that might have been

The roads they did not take

It is for others

That I confess regrets

 

John Robert McFarland

Bonus observation on grandparent thinking: Daughter Katie Kennedy says that the reason their dog, Ernie, liked me so much was that I understood that sometimes he needed to go out not because his bladder was full but because his nose was empty. [It’s that kind of imagery that makes her such a good writer.]