Telemachus' Kindness - Louise Glück

When I was younger I felt

sorry for myself

compulsively; in practical terms,

I had no father; my mother

lived at her loom hypothesizing

her husband's erotic life; gradually

I realized no child on that island had

a different story; my trials

were the general rule, common

to all of us, a bond

among us, therefore

with humanity: what

a life my mother had, without

compassion for my father's

suffering, for a soul

ardent by nature, thus

ravaged by choice, nor had my father

any sense of her courage, subtly

expressed as inaction, being

himself prone to dramatizing,

to acting out: I found

I could share these perceptions

with my closest friends, as they shared

theirs with me, to test them,

to refine them: as a grown man

I can look at my parents

impartially and pity them both: I hope

always to be able to pity them.