Mansions
Once a mansion, on a hill with a pool
Near the stream we fished and fields we frequently hunted
Our neighbor as the housekeeper
Remember when I was young, the longing to look inside
Now boarded up door, no pool but still a mansion in my mind,
still travel back in time
Streams I fished with my father at my side,
Joy so many times and disappointment surface too
Posted now, No trespassing
Selling fresh brown eggs and bunnies for sale
Near the bridge that carried many a car in the day
Underneath youth fishing hearts away
Roads once traveled when young at heart, wild and free
Farms and farmers l once knew, stalwartly traditional, and pillars
Farmlands renamed now, residences
No longer working farms
Bridge near hometowns named now for uncle who gave,
The ultimate, though we never knew him or WWII
The history we had
ongoing love and pain
every family experience,
Some families, nothing breaking their day
Our family, though it is hard to “love those and not turn away”
He who “knew what he knew, did the best he could, and that best was devastating to me” *
Me, myself, and alone
A reliable narrator of our life history, lessening the pain
Retreating and armoring myself for fear of the same
We love and we lose,
battle addiction, illness, and loneliness; care for children and parents; struggle in our jobs, our marriages, we try
Not realizing that love and fury are part
The whole spectrum of our life and love of family *
Somehow, we keep buried, hard things,
addictions, and those things that devastate,
If only in our minds
Nothing like walking from the shady side of the mountain back to the sunny side again, feeling the warmth of the sunshine
at the same time cool air enlivens and awakens
Hope shines and lightens,
We let go now, the heavy packs at our feet,
like bottles broken at the bottom of the stairs
Loving all that we were, our story,
No longer trapped, no longer shielding of hiding away
Choosing forgiveness and living the life we have
“Living with and allowing for, accommodating for, the good bits and the bad” *
Mansions, Glimpse poetry by Joe Holuta
*Everything Happens with Kate Bowler,
Julia Samuel: Every Family Has A Story: • S9 E11
Every family has a story
About this poem: Mansions is a poem about parents we hold high in our lives yet have had serious flaws that were devastating at the time but when you look back have shaped you.
The mansion mentioned in the poem is a metaphor of a person held in high regard yet subject to deteriorating and a feeling of loss or grief for something lost.
Beautiful times experienced but many of the moments filled with disappointment.
The ongoing love and pain every family experiences concerning a family member’s addiction.
I became the narrator of our lives, and kept buried, deep disappointment not thinking that this was the spectrum of our whole life we had together.
One day, when thinking about writing this poem and while walking, I walked from the shady side of a mountain to the sunny side, bright side feeling the warmth, and somehow loving all that we are, and every part of my story. Seemed a burden, a backpack, fell off my back and the weight lifted representing the shame and doubt that I felt because of his and my sin.
There was one occasion when i was young and my father was drunk, we had a plan to go fishing or something I can’t recall exactly and was so disappointed and angry. I went downstairs to the cellar and picked up his whole case of beer and threw it down the stairs, and they broke at the cellar floor, glass shattered. I remember crying, remember the shock in his face, and also a sobering moment for him.
I recalled a passage in the book, The Pilgrims Progress, by John Bunyan -
“Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.
He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.
Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, “He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.” Then he stood still a while, to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.”
Forgiveness- as I asked forgiveness and I forgave my father of past wrong the longing and desire to start “Living with and allowing for, accommodating for, the good bits and the bad” gave new perspective and gratefulness.
I traveled to the area we used to go hunting and fishing all the time and recalled having good and bad memories, remembered the laughter and joy with a stringer of trout, the pride he felt for us, and remembered mom who fried trout in the most amazing way.
I saw the roads, the “narrow bridge” and the “mansion” I remembered on a hill. -Joe Holuta
