No More Blows

David Romtvedt

First the dog died and we pulled the sledge

ourselves.  A couple of centuries later

a wheel fell off the cart and another

millennium gone by, the pistons started

to knock, rings worn, fuel to air mix off.

When they landed, the aliens promised

peace beyond understanding.  You think

a civilization able to cross space and time

can fix anything, think again.  In the end

it was, “Sorry, we’ve done all we can,”

stepping back into their ship and closing

the door, tears in their eyes.  That was

a surprise, seeing the aliens cry.

As a child, if I cried, my father beat me,

saying, as so many fathers before him

have said, “You wanta cry, I’ll give you

something to cry about.”  Confused, I came

to hate not what he’d done to me, but crying.

Later, I too was a father.   When my daughter,

suffering from severe colic, cried, I wanted

to strike out, not knowing at what, having

worked so hard to forget my childhood, afraid

I might hit my daughter as my father had hit me.

I turned away and left the house, walking

across the frozen lake, the windblown surface

free of snow, the fish moving silently beneath my feet.

Sometimes in the cold, things come clear—

my daughter cried and I heard my father’s

ragged breathing, recoiled from his blow,

but this time I stepped aside, and never

again feared I might hit my child.

In understanding why my daughter’s or anyone’s crying so disturbed me, I was to some degree freed from my father’s blows and so never again feared that I might lose control and hit my daughter.  I also understood that the aliens had to leave, that no outside force could solve my problems.  Finally, I accepted that even if I were not ruled by the association between tears and being beaten that I’d made in childhood, crying might always make me uncomfortable.