“On Closure When Children Have Been Lost” (Can’t get them out of my mind)
On Closure When Children Have Been Lost
It’s only when I see the block letters bruising
the front page: “Etan:
Choked, Bagged, Dumped” that I
realize how I’ve imagined Gestapo
cuddling their dogs; Hitler
as a vegetarian; those barren Argentine
generals who seemingly loved the
children whose actual parents they
disappeared–how my mind has tried, in
secret even from itself,
to imagine a person deranged, evil,
but somehow kindly to kids, stealing Etan and all those other
missing children,
and keeping them
brainwashed perhaps and eating
pasty foods by the crate – there’s such
a crowd–but
alive–
Even as another part of my brain
knows it doesn’t work like that (Elizabeth
Smart), still it strives (those unkindly grey cellar years)
for a saving grace, silver
lining, guardian angel (but at least she’s still
living), God; to find,
like Abraham, that suffering is but
a test in which a
passing grade is possible, complete with gold
stars and one’s child
back.
Not random pain, not unredeemed
evil.
Not pain compounded by the guilt and fear that it
was not me
this time, not
mine, oh please,
not ever.
Please —
For even as guardian angel
turns gargoyle stone, the brain, roiling, holds
to what it can, prays
on–now that the boy is okay wherever he is,
in whatever realm, form, or formlessness.
**************************************************
Sorry to followers of this blog, to be so grim. It is hard here in New York (especially if, like me, you have lived downtown for many years) to not be thinking of the recent developments in the Etan Patz case, sending prayers to Etan’s parents.
Explore posts in the same categories: poetryTags: closure on children lost, Etan Patz poem, gestapo who cuddled dogs, guardian gargoyle, localizing evil, looking for redemption, manicddaily, poem about missing children
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
ManicDDaily 
May 26, 2012 at 12:07 am
it is sooo hard and sad to witness even the whisperings of such things…to survive even as detached as we are…i know I have been tormented I have had to use conscious loving detachment from the thoughts and the rethoughts of awful unthinkables….LOVE LOVE LOVE makes the devil let go
May 26, 2012 at 5:24 am
Yes, well, I think that’s true in one’s self -k.
May 26, 2012 at 3:36 am
What I find is that writing on such things tends to make them even more grim than they were – if that is possible. But we are looking for the silver thread that leads back to some sort of Eden where these things cannot take place or where redemption is on offer. For me your poems have detected that elusive thread. I hope they have for you.
May 26, 2012 at 5:23 am
Thank you. I do think I will not write about this for a while. I haven’t been reading the articles too much–we are inundated here – after the first ones. It is all too sad, really, and the sensational element of the papers pretty awful. k.
May 26, 2012 at 7:02 am
i dunno, i find writing therapeutic and it allows us to process our own thoughts on what is happening around us…while it may be grim it is also something that has touched you…so i would not hesitate to write it out if you need…it is…i am even having a hard time coming up with a word here, but sad i guess will do…
May 26, 2012 at 7:16 am
Thanks and agreed. I have just scribbled out carnival/fair poem though – I’m guessing that’s the prompt – and it’s been fun. I liked yours–I travel today with mom in tow! so maybe can get this done early, but revelation is I used pen and paper, my old friends, instead of computer or phone, and whoa–was just so pleasant! k.
May 26, 2012 at 10:20 am
I so can relate to the central premise here–you really let the reader visualize in lines 6-8–that evil is not absolute, that redemption, hope, always exist in some form(often delusionally)–but death is not the worst evil we face by any means, and your conclusion shows it has its own mercy, however grim. I feel for the parents, having this all revived and relentlessly peddled 24/7 for news fodder, more than I feel for the boy, whose suffering has long been over. I agree with brian, writing out the grim is a therapy I do all the time, so much so people probably think I am quite the depressed one, which I’m not; it always leaves me lightened and able to see more clearly. Hope you have a great day, k, and a nice long weekend to make up for all the hecticness lately.
May 26, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Thanks so much, Joy. Hectic times continue for a few more weeks, but traveling to a place where even if I have to do job work over the holiday, I won’t feel too deprived and will have help with visiting mom. K.
May 29, 2012 at 12:04 pm
I love this. That is all.
I have just found another rare favorite.
May 29, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Thanks so much. You’re very kind. I have a question for you–is your father actually Walt or are you referring to Whitman? It’s a great name for a blog. k.
May 29, 2012 at 12:36 pm
haha I get asked that a lot, my father’s name is Raymond. Walt does refer to Whitman. I was just explaining something about this to my bf yesterday. I had a professor once who claimed that Whitman was the father of modern American poetry, so being a modern American poet who needed a screen name, I picked up on it. The active blog is actually http://dadpoet.wordpress.com.