This was on the Writer's Almanac today. It was read really nicely by Garrison Keillor(and yes, I did write today. Not quite for pay just yet.....
).
Jean
Poem: "Meeting My Son at the Airport" by Lou Lipsitz from Seeking the Hook: New and Selected Poems. © Signal Books, Chapel Hill, NC. Reprinted with permission.
Meeting My Son at the Airport
I'm there before and I wait.
When he comes through the passageway
I remember his being born,
dark-haired infant pushed out
with his mother's blood.
Now he carries the colorful
valise on his shoulder and
doesn't see me. I'm standing
right in front of him and he
doesn't see me. He doesn't
let on that he sees me.
This is the moment it is all
said. You walked out on me, dad.
I won't ever get angry. I won't
even feel the betrayal. You
walked out on us and I was
six years old. Now you come
to the airport and I don't
see you.
For a moment I imagine him
flying at me and knocking me down;
or the two of us, out of breath,
bewildered, on our knees, weeping.
But he walks on, a prince
in gorgeous athletic robes who
stops for no one. And then, as I
reach out for him, he seems
like a blind boy too proud
to ask for help.
I take one of his bags
and hug him. It's done.
Damage of twenty years ago.
If I live long enough and
he returns one day to
the small, locked, forgotten
door and I am allowed to
return from this unacknowledged
exile, maybe we will meet again.