Poem: Difficult

In Africa, lion after lion fell before the Colonel’s artillery.  Rhinos, hippos, antelopes, wildebeests, and all manner of game were struck down, helpless as Democrats.  When a skeptical George Creel asked one of Theodore Roosevelt’s guides how the former President, “blind in one eye, and myopic in the other,” could hit any of the animals that he accumulated on his safaris, the guide explained that when the Colonel leveled his, three other guns were also leveled, “ Mr. Roosevelt had a fairly good idea of the general direction, but we couldn’t take chances with the life of a former president.”

n  from America Enters the World by Page Smith

Difficult

You are difficult.

You are difficult.

Just because I love you…

Just because….

You were named Joanna

during the eye of a hurricane.

Your name meant passion.

You became the center of our lives.

I remember driving around Washington listening to your fetal heartbeat.

Tick.

Your Mother carried you inside her to the Great Wall of China,

the only humanly crafted object one can see from outer space.

Watching Diana win over the Chinese--winning slowly and persistently--gave a sense of your mother’s

     power and talent.

Diana received for excellence a US Department of Commerce specially minted coin presented by

     the Sectary of Commerce himself.

My life also became less interesting.

Remember you were the show.

We wanted Amelia because we so much admired your performance, we wanted more?

More?

I see you on the grounds of the National Arboretum.

You have a large ball in your hand

and are wearing an endearing look caught--as a perfect image.

Why are all the photographs we make of you perfect?

Were you an error-proof model in a previous life?

You are too close to me to write about you clearly.

I love you too much for dispassion.

I am who I am--the fellow who is there for you when you are about to trip. 

I am the fellow who anticipates danger and attempts to avert it.

Why is it the father-daughter/parent-child language’s sentiment is so sugary sweet in its

     sentimentality?

We both admit that we love each other.

Does that mean we are members of some special covenant?

You are quiet with me; you are angry; you are accusing, you are a number of words and paragraphs ending with the encoded words “and I’m glad to see you.”

I know you.

                                   -- Joel Solkoff

May, 2003, Durham, NC