Chin Up, Stiff Upper Lip - Barry Spector

[Larry Robinson]

“Chin Up, Stiff Upper Lip,”
 
the father would intone, winking his eyes,
         with the accent he pilfered from the movies of his youth,
         with the demeanor of the rabbi he never became,
         with the style of the Borscht-Belt comedian he couldn’t embody.
 
“That’s Dad,” the sons would agree, rolling their eyes,
         with the sigh of the unwelcome,
         with the sarcasm of the unacknowledged,
         with the suppressed rage of the uninitiated.
 
Where does this poem need to go?

Toward the weeping mother who would rub her eyes
         with undisguised longing for her carefree youth,
         with the comfortable self-pity of her domestic prison,
         with the dangerous hunger of an unsatisfied woman?
 
Or toward the happy gods who would avert their eyes
         as they toyed with each other,
         as they cast flame and flood down upon mortals,
         as they consumed their own children?
 
What about the sons who pluck out their eyes
         as they accept less and less,
         as they tolerate more and more,
         as they suck in their frozen chests?
 
Or the city that glazes its eyes in false innocence,
         guarding its walls of imagined security,
         closing its gates to the impure,
         erecting its towers on unstable soil?
 
Or should we welcome the sons who pry open their eyes
         as they demand their inheritance,
         as they offer us their essence,
         as they envision a world that doesn’t need this poem?

	- Barry Spector


“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”
	- Wendell Berry



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