You Seldom Did Your Best
Some long time ago
You lived up in Manitou among mountains
In the apartment you liked,
In the apartment whose walls
Were not trued to a square.
That was before you left town
With your books and your bed,
And your beauty, for the Southern light.
I remember you,
The clear-eyed woman who came to me,
When her grandmother died
And sat by my feet to talk of her life.
You said you fear to fuck any man you love
For lovers cause hurt if they leave.
Said your grandmother had passions,
But somehow you not.
I have wondered of you
How you chose to live among mountains,
In an apartment unsquared,
With such petty loves?
Were you like a seed in winter with enough life
To await an inevitable spring?
Or someone of talent condemned forever
To mediocrity?
For all I learned of you is merely this before you left:
You seldom did your best,
But you got by.
I have often wondered why so many of us do not live up to our capacity for loving? Do you have any ideas about that?
Stumble It!
3 comments:
Why don't we live up to our capacity of love? I am sure everyone will have different answers based of life's experiances. I belive you are born with full capacity as an infant. Then either through lack of love or emotion from your parents or through love and devotion from your parents the first seed is laid down so to speak. From there you have so many different influences from people and how they view you, to how your relationships have faired and how you chose those relationships. Then there is personality. Some people are givers other takers. Some have the strengh to ride out a tough relationship and move on, others never recover. So many answers to this one.
The more certain we are, the less we can love.
Thank you, Jacquie! I agree with you that there are so many answers to the question. But you seem to do a very good job laying out several possible answers! Thanks for that food for thought!
And, thank you Brendan! Your statement has intrigued me since I first read it. It makes sense to me, but I'm hoping that you'll elaborate on it.
Here's how it makes sense: I've noticed the ideas I form about a person can intervene between me and my experience of that person. If I'm not alert to that, then I can actually mistake my experience of my own thoughts about a person for my experience of the person himself. So, for instance, if I get bored with my ideas of a person, then I mistakenly think I am bored with the person.
Any of that make sense, or should I try a better brand of Burbon before posting?
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