Memoir 105

I watched you for such a long time
as long as I can remember
without ever trying
these memories come tumbling
bruising and unwelcome
replacing other more modern thoughts
when these are no better but easier

I watched you grow older
although I never changed
as I saw the scenes of my youth
through the same curious eyes
trying to see beyond the skin
for the motivation searching the distorted love

I watched you being there seldom smiling
a fixture yet so remote in a different world
ignorant of my unspoken expectations
a place I could not understand
nor never will until I see myself
in that same isolated space alone
and you stayed there for so long
under the scrutiny of my noticing
and you influenced me too much
as I think about it now
wanting to be different
wanting to be so much better
but I’m not, which is my burden

I watched you when you went away
a confused stranger to yourself
and I did see you then as you were
vulnerable, self critical to a fault
lacking in that core self esteem
I could only see the negative space
like a shadow without a standard

I watched you then in my mind
as a wishful, errant, hapless spirit
somehow distant and unknowable
possibly, I felt sorry for you

I watched you when you were not there
as someone I wanted to see in a different way
I felt sorry for myself
a fledgling too early on his own
but that is the course of nature
that is the curse and blessing of Humanity
to have you yet not to know you
to be of you yet to seek my own way

I watched you taking the place of no one else
but not holding that place until later
and when later came the shoes were switched
and needing to have a different life
and bravely, I pursued that love
that calls us all to our tasks
mine was no less automatic than yours
and equally unfulfilled, lacking
but by that vacantness made somehow larger

I watched you then with your wounded pride
resolute to see beyond yourself
isolated from your own potential
condemned by your own failed ambitions
unsettled always imagining a higher worth

I watched you as a sad, broken mirror
of whom I did not want to be but am
in so many ways I cannot shake
yet there is this resonating voice
of gratitude gnawing that calls me right
to thank my fortune for my grace

I watch you alive in me
to make a better world in a feeble way
striving in this way for undeserved immortality
this voice is a whisper in each wind
reminding me of whom I am in spite of myself
taking me down but sustaining me
ambiguous feelings of regret and forgiveness
grateful for what so many have not
envious for what so few have in abundance

I watch you in my voice, in my walk
I know you better from whom I am
than from what I saw, bewildered.

Written on September 26, 2008, 105th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Reed Jacob who passed away April 22, 1971