Thursday 22 November 2012

Tuesday Poem: "Entrusted to Love"



The key is love
but you were born to a family
with too little love to go around.
To be whole is a crime
in a kingdom of cripples
so they sought to maim you
with violence and neglect.

The key is love
but you could not find the lock
to open up the house of light.
So you smashed all the windows
with the cudgel of anger
but the light and warmth fled
from the darkness you unleashed.

The key is love
but you tried to buy it with pain
and the price kept rising.
One more organisation whose best intentions
were handcuffed to a shrinking purse,
one more hostel where the bullies
made you too scared to be scared.

The key is love
but now you must seek it from strangers
whose heads get in the way of their hearts.
You drag me into your bitter self-hatred,
pushing me to lose sight of love
but it is my beacon on this quest
to discover you by discovering myself.


POET'S NOTE: For my sins, I once worked as a live-in Cottage Parent for an Anglican-run residential  home based on a semi-rural property. We looked after children who had been removed from their parents by Social Services because they had been maltreated in some way. Naturally, it was a very challenging job and our job was to try to "normalise" the children so they could be placed in Foster care or, if at all possible, returned to their families. To "normalise" the children, we just had to treat them the way their parents should have, with love and respect and kindness.

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