OPTIMISM

October 09, 2018 / John Grimmett

The great irony
in this life
is that conditional love is infinite,
and those saints
who walk the hallways in hospitals,
in classrooms,
in orphanages
and in quiet gardens
are limited
in number
for good reason.

I was meant to lose to understand,
like a rock tossed into an ocean,
what it means to sink
between the autumnal light of my childhood,
of my Mickey Mouse wallpaper
and Donald Duck bedsheets,
to the slowly passing seasons
of locked rooms
and burned bridges
and a chattering stranger
who, over a drink,
asks you “Knock, knock”
and you say “Who’s there?”
knowing already
before his beer-stained breath
hits your ear
that the answer is
no one.

The lesson,
my indomitable heart,
is that all loving
is not benevolent —
that you must learn
to handle the hurt —
that you must hurl yourself
like a rock into an ocean
never to be seen again —
and that the rest of it,
foolish boy,
is solely a gift.

It must be.

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