Steve Garrett writes how our griefs tell the story of our love.
___
From the desire to exorcise
our deep-felt fear of softness,
and soothe the ache of our disconnection,
from the feminine,
we men can lose what we love most,
in trying to prove
that we are invulnerable.
And so we sing out from stadium stands
to commemorate the love-crazed killing
of Tom’s temptress from Treforest.*
Envy and pain
distort delight
into rage and disdain
for the beauty and grace
we crave to contain.
In our present tenseness
and the false safety of our sad isolation,
we are dying to forget our need
of the women who reared us.
We always hurt the ones we love,
and would also, it seems, rather kill our Earth Mother
than risk remembering we are her children.
*The 1968 Tom Jones hit “Delilah”, which describes the killing of his former lover by a jealous man, became an unofficial anthem for the fans of Wales’ rugby team and until recently was regularly sung by them at matches. In has since been ‘banned’. Tom was born and raised in the Welsh Valley’s former mining town of Treforest.
Photo by Martinak15