Response to Theodore Roethke's My Papa's Waltz

My Papa's Waltz

Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I held on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother's countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

Dancing with a Liar

Amily Sommers

You dance this dance that once was ours,

Performed only within our home,

While outside you were wide-eyed,

Innocent,

Such a sweet little girl.

You liked the dance too much, it seems,

Now you've decided to share.

No longer sweet, no longer pure, you’re just

The dancer.

And everyone knows.

You pay no heed to rigid rules,

You ignore stark consequences,

You just twirl and weave around them all,

Waltzing

Where you please. 

You fancy yourself too great for us,

The master of your art,

But what you can’t see is that your graceful dance

Is like a toddler’s

First steps.

Response to Andrew Hudgins' Begotten

On Family

Amily Sommers

When I was young, I would pretend

That I belonged to another family.

And they would come and whisk me away,

And I would be something great.

It only takes one look, however,

To chase my daydreams away.

I can disown my family no more

Than they could deny me.

I can see myself in my mother,

My face, my height, my shape,

My unruly hair which can never be tamed,

And my love for all things dark.

I see myself in my father too,

My awkward personality,

The way we always wish to speak,

But never know the words.

The resemblance is in my siblings too;

We’re so similar it’s creepy.

Six children with only two faces,

And all of the same behaviors.

Like others, I can look at my family

And see exactly what I am,

But where others might dread this revelation,

I see it as a comfort.

No matter where I go in life,

Or how far apart I stand,

There will always be a place I can return to,

A place where I belong.

“419” (H 174) from Fascicle 15

“We grow accustomed to the Dark.” This first line gave me a heavy sense of reluctant acceptance. It brought to mind images of a person suffering silently, resigned to their fate, no longer caring what hardships life threw at them. By the end, though, the poem had a whole new tone. It seemed to ring of feathered hope, sometimes flitting out of reach, but never truly leaving.

In Dickinson's poem, only “the Bravest” begin to grope around in the dark. It takes courage to face one’s obstacles when we’re not sure where they are, but the ones who sit still and do nothing will remain trapped in the darkness indefinitely.

To me, then, this poem seemed to serve as a reminder that there will always be “Dark” times, but no matter how much or how little time we spend in the dark, there will always be a shift, a click in our minds, where “the Darkness alters” and we are once again able to see the path ahead. Even if we stumble and walk into some trees, there will always come a time when “Life steps almost straight.”

Black and White are characters from the manga Grey Is... by DeeJuusan, an emotional and really heart-wrenching story about two friends who are trapped in their own darkness, found here.