A Family Story

When I was a young child,
I delighted in the things of life.
I scouted the woods and streams
And was awed at what I beheld.

It was a good life which I had
In nature I saw meaning and joy.
My photos at the time
Saw me at peace in the world alive.

As I progressed in life to engage with my family
To take hold of who I was within it and would later become,
My wonder turned from delight to fright
My peace and awesome joy took flight.

I engaged with a family who knew little of joy
Whose relations and behaviors seemed strange.
Life story for them was a puzzle most perplexing
Forging a reality and a story which was most distressing.

I can not speak to the lives they perceived
When they, like I, took hold of what life offered
But I believe they had mixed joys and cruel blessings
Which guided their stories and were sometimes perplexing.

I can only speak to how I experienced this tale
Which I addressed in my home
One which guided and challenges me
Through this day to my end.

As it goes, my father, unsure of his foundation
Sought with all he found within him
To be successful in his sight:
A man respected by others and materially rewarded in life.

He was well on his way to attaining his goal
When his first born from marriage quavered his soul.
When he gazed at this child and beheld his fair skin
He knew that this child was not his: his wife unfaithful to him.

This undercut his joy
Made him feel like a fool
He lost the respect he wanted so bad
When it was revealed others had shared his bed.

A man"s thoughts run deep
But no more so than his.
When he found he had been fooled
Revengeful plans sprouted in his head.

He put off his fine clothing
And renounced his life goals
Putting on old farmer garb
With a glum expression, not a pretty sight to behold.

He had sought to leave
His roots on the farm
To become something better
But now a tale of defeat to unfold.

He would punish his wife
For unfaithfulness he saw
By renouncing his goals
Which were her delight in him as well.

So I encountered this tale
And paled as I saw
Its effect on my life
And the lives of others unfold.

This part of the story
Has only now been revealed,
So it I have conveyed
And the rest more briefly laid.

My dad made my brother to succeed where he failed:
To find wealth and respect which dad"s grasp could not hold.
He punished and coerced him and my brother complied
Attaining wealth and possessions and much earthly pride.

I on the other hand was cast as the fool,
The other side of my dad"s life which he found so cruel.
He taught me little yet strangely delighted in me too
Seeing his own early joys in the things I liked to do.

I sought to make better
My life enmeshed in this family"s tale
By rejecting my dad"s lead
And unraveling myself from this tale"s thought, word and deed.

I became a counselor, a social worker by trade
Seeking to redefine the foundations my family had laid.
I have been fooled more times than I count
But have found more peace than mountains I must surmount.

My mother has had a life,
Dismal at tunes
But has surmounted her limits
Achieving goals of her own.

My brother remains bitter
For his part in the whole.
He"s not found peace
Nor the joy of his goal.

And what of this tale did my children engage?
And what would they recall if their words were on this page?
I have limited perspective in answering this query.
They will and do have their own loads to carry.

I wish I could help them
To shed some delight
For life"s joys are fleeting
And too soon will take flight.