rue
what is rue? a perennial evergreen shrub with bitter, strong-scented lobed leaves that are used in herbal medicine. also compassion, pity, repentance, regret, or as a verb, to bitterly regret. (it has nothing to do with the French rue, street, but is a direct descendent of the Old English hreow, the Dutch rouw, and the German reue.) some days I know A.E. Housman's "With rue my heart is laden", and some days I don't. I wake up to the white man's history with women, or with black people, with Native Americans, with anyone else than white men, and I want to crawl under my bed. I want to protest that I didn't do it, but that's hogwash. I am the beneficiary of all those acts, and unconsciously participated in my own from the time we landed in this country (roughly 1954) til now. yes, even now, I catch myself too late acting the generous white man. if there were a way to cut that out of me, I would. but we are trained to it - ah, and those training us aren't even aware that they're training us. it's the expected, the norm. it's our society, our culture. it's who we are. it's who I am. I think but cannot know that sometimes I am a genuine fellow-human. please, universe, let that be so. so, rue? yes, I know it. sometimes I live it. and yes, I appreciate it.
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