it's okay.

i found this poem in a folder in my office. i used to have it taped to my bedroom door.

musee des beaux arts
about suffering they were never wrong,
the old masters: how well they understood
its human position; how it takes place
while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
how, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
for the miraculous birth, there always must be
children who do not specially want it to happen, skating
on a pond at the edge of the wood:
they never forgot
that even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
in brueghel's icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
but for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
as it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.


it's funny to me that i had this on my door, post-high school, but before my mom died.
this is an idea that i've always pondered, the way that pain or tragedy can be really private, but i had so little experience with anything really sad (messy break up, maybe), i didn't really know anything about any kind of suffering.
i think back on people that i know, who have had terribly painful, difficult things happen to them, and i just couldn't relate because i hadn't experienced any pain.
again, not like the death of my mom qualifies me as an expert in suffering or pain, but it really did give me a new perspective, and an ability to understand pain in a way that i never could have even imagined before-hand.
and it's true, the terrible things that happen to people, most of the rest of the world knows nothing about it.
i think about the people i went to school with, or worked with, and imagine things that happened in their home lives that i wasn't aware of. while i was agonizing over something insignificant, people's private tragedies and pain were playing out unnoticed.
i remember feeling a sense of shock and upset that people could laugh or ride their bikes or fall in love as my mom was dying. it just felt so huge that everyone, everywhere should know about it.
i'd like to apologize to anyone who reads this and who has gone through something personal and terrible and who i wasn't able to really connect with. i want to apologize for not being able to be there for you. i know all pain is pretty personal, and me experiencing something heart-bruising doesn't mean i understand every pain conceivable, but i understand some of it now, more than i ever did before. i am sorry you had to go through that without me. i hope i am able to be a better friend/relative/daughter/neighbor to you in the future.