I'm Sorry I Can;t Tell You What

October 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is illnesses and disabilities.

Today’s poem is from a deaf child to her mother about acceptance and love.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'm sorry I can't tell you what

I'm sure you'd rather hear,

But there's a burden in my heart

I can no longer bear.

There's an anger I must cross

Before I come to you

And make my peace with who you are,

And try your soul anew.

I know I wasn't what you wanted

When you wanted me,

A healthy, happy baby girl

You could raise easily.

I was born impaired, and you

Have never understood

That what I am is whole and fair

And beautiful and good.

You were sorry, first for me

And then for you, and wept,

But I would not be me without

The fact that I am deaf.

I am a gift to celebrate

And not a cause to grieve.

As a child this was what

I needed to believe.

I needed but a different road

To reach the common goal,

But you decided there were things

I couldn't do at all.

And rather than accept what life

Had given in its grace,

You looked at what life had withheld

And turned from its embrace.

Ah, Mother! How you injured me

By what you would not own!

To love myself I had to leave

And make my way alone,

And have my children in the course

Of what I would become,

But always, always looking back

To where I had no home.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/imsor4.html. For more poems about disabilities, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/disabilitiespoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 17: I’m Sorry I Can’t Tell You What