Truth Saying

I am a man who sits, but once was young,
heart porous as an apple.
I am become
the shadow of my father.
Perhaps that's good.
My son who took his life won't have to look
at my life
as the book his life forsook.

Perhaps my son was anxious to undo
a deed he'd done
or stop himself from doing what he feared.
The tears at least are past.
It will take years and lives beyond my death
to put at rest the questions and the doubts.
But what of debts?

I ask myself once more what makes men strong,
why some men choose to fail,
choose to be wrong;
or why persistent torment drives those down
who bow their knees
and ask forgiveness from
the wives and mothers driven to reform,
so make of love a gauntlet:
smile or frown.

The truth is I'm ashamed of my own need
to find some saving virtue,
to ease the hurt of lives
the pain of which leaves only scars;
admit at last my simple need to come
hand out, as would a beggar,
to receive,
instead of coins, a blessing;
to retrieve
from ashes of lost hope and self-deceit
the truth that joins all men at final rout:
the joy we knew as boys
before came doubts.