Daily Archives: March 13, 2007

a poetic offering from the least likely

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This was a poem that was recited at the end of the movie Smoke Signals, a movie about two Native American friends who go on a journey to find and forgive absent fathers. Their smoke signals are cries for help. The movie was just fair but the ending was wonderful, with this poem being recited over beautiful cinematography. (I put the poets name in lower case in keeping with how I like my poets…)

forgiving our fathers
by dick lourie

how do we forgive our fathers?
maybe in a dream
do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?

maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.

do we forgive our fathers for marrying or not marrying our mothers?
for divorcing or not divorcing our mothers?

and shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through walls
or never speaking
or never being silent?

do we forgive our fathers in our age or in theirs
or their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?

if we forgive our fathers what is left?

* This poem was originally published in a longer version titled “Forgiving Our Fathers” in a book of poems titled Ghost Radio.

Drum roll, please!

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Michael,

This Monday, Mar 12 at 2:00 pm, Boulder North Gym, everyone is invited to watch the slaughter of the century. Joe Ajello will be pounding me into the walls of a racquetball court. In the old days, 1965-1970 at CU, Joe used to spot me 20 points in handball (21-point game) and beat me every single time. So, if Joe’s handball skills translate into racquetball, this game should test my treachery and trickiness to the ultimate.

Tune in on Tuesday, and I’ll tell you (possibly from the hospital) if I scored any points against Joe.

–rakkity

Tuesday

Hi Patrick,

Yesterday I had my first racquetball games since January. Joe Ajello & I played. He used to be a champion handball player, then switched to racquetball in the 80’s, but this was the first time he’s played since 1985. He’s a lefty, so I served to his backhand on the right side, but his backhand is really good. Then I tried serving to his forehand on the left, and he wasn’t as good with his forehand. He tried to kil the ball a lot and missed, so I beat him in 2 games. My z shots, learned from Dominic, helped a lot. After the 1st 2 games we had only 10 minutes left in our hour, so we played to 9, and he beat me 9-5. But no one was coming to play after us, and he suggested we continue to 15. I managed to catch up to him and beat him 15-10. We were both exhausted afterwards.

Looking forward to our games at Maryland. Do you have any particular times that would be good? Most any afternoon from Mon the 26th to the 29th would be fine.

Love, Dad