For Danny
I blurted out the truth
mindless of the harm
‘He is vital, smart and interested.
He makes me warm
To my subject. So like my son!’
And then I left.
I had won,
but at the cost
Of self-approbation.
I had lost.
A cry for help – silly white lies;
Despised now too in mother’s eyes.
He summoned me to his office, now alone
Mother and delinquent child long gone
‘Said you were ‘picking on him”, with a knowing grin
‘Both mad as hatters! Evil as sin!’
No years of ‘chalk and talk’
and innocent upturned faces
Could prepare me for that walk
The troubled boy of ’84
aching no more.
He refused me leave
to attend the funeral mass
‘Pressed for time, you see!
Understaffed!’
I spoke out then. Too late.
Tore into him
Begged God’s forgiveness
for the hate I bore him.
At the graveside I prayed
perpetual light to shine
On him whose earthly burden
weighed much heavier than mine
Until the lonely stress was raised at last
Through straining rope
hanging from a roof truss.
Last night I marked each hour
the ticking clock’s chime:
I was begging his forgiveness
for all the times
That I was self-obsessed
thoughtless or unkind
For easy victories
when his troubled upturned face
was reading mine.
I pray the Lord his soul and mine to keep
when life is spent
And other sinners too
when they repent.