I first wrote about this poem in my journal in June 2014 when Laura Brown and I were poetry buddying our way through Kevin Young’s collection Book of Hours. I was really taken with this one and have returned to it over and over.
Originally, The Joy of Poetry was supposed to have an entire chapter about buddying with Laura and about the poems in Young’s collection. Unfortunately, Harper Collins does not offer coupons for permissions. Also, when I rewrote the book, that whole chapter with Laura was condensed down to a sentence, a decision I still regret although I don’t know how I could have rectified it.
There’s a nod in the poem to Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto,” about a man’s reach exceeding his grasp or what’s a heaven for. It makes me think that we have expectations for our children — how can we not? But as they grow and we learn who they are, we let go of who we thought they were. Sometimes we have to let them travel beyond our reach. Sometimes we grasp nothing, and it sure doesn’t feel like heaven. That’s why exceeding is necessary.
Blessings
(for my stepdaughter)
May you never see
the diseased carp
being carried from the lake
like a lost girl, limp.
May the white dog
of Mercy drag you
from the car long before
it pours into flame.
May Mercy come
when called.
May you never lose
the family dog through
early ice, as your father did,
then weeks later spot
him below, frozen, eyeing you
skating just
out of reach, looking
like heaven to him.
May you exceed
our expectations, not
our reach, our reach
but not our grasp,
our homes
not our arms.
~ Kevin Young
Your turn.
