The Lesson

Be careful what you learn from me
Because nothing I ever learned was the truth.

The only truths I ever learned were questions

And I have learned to question the people I learned from.

I am left to detect the past they hid from me

Solve the problems they could not face

To grow from this fetid soil.

I am left to name the treachery that paved my way

To see the river of blood that runs to my door,

So much blood.

If I forgive them it is not without cost.

Is there anything at all, I wonder,

That I can take from this pile of rubble

Now before me

Because knowing is bad

But forgetting is wrong.

And we must lean into the pain
To know the growth it brings.

So we, aimless wanderers, 
Are left to find a better way.

11-05-2017

© 2017 Donna Jo Wallace