Resurrection of the Granite King
Thirty years of working with people & little changes
Good Friday & I am pondering
at the kitchen table how long
I will go on dealing with people
angrily determined life
has wronged them — as it must do —
as it wrongs us all. I have known
& loved this young man for three
years when he issues an invitation
— he thinks I have wronged him
as health issues forced me to alter my schedule.
Perhaps all sons must eventually
defeat the image of the father, grow bigger
while the older man diminishes.
But he is wrong about our trajectory
is angry too because I dared tell him
it is time to shift, to quit the blame game.
For peace, he must surrender long-held
grief & grudge. Yet I see he is unready
a small piece of obsidian now glinting
like a crazed diamond, where his heart should be
even more determined & needing to be right.
I intend to hold out a final palm.
The Granite King fails to see he is
ensnared by a demon & will ruin any
relationship once cherished, as well
as his own life. After 30 years of this
I want to lie down at the back of the house
in a sunlit cornfield where no
human being can disturb Earth’s silence.
I hadn’t noticed I had offered him
a last chance on Easter Sunday
time of peace & resurrection.
I pray for a change but suspect
to meet his angry boy —
once my own — but there’s a chance.
It’s slim & needs a miracle.
Heaven knows.
Copyright Simon Heathcote
