{"id":2181,"date":"2017-02-03T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T05:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2181"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:47:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:47:20","slug":"feb-3-no-longer-a-teenager-gerald-locklin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2017\/02\/03\/feb-3-no-longer-a-teenager-gerald-locklin\/","title":{"rendered":"Feb 3 — no longer a teenager Gerald Locklin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, February 3<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201ci stay alive for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today begins a weekend and some soft time for home places \u2014 Detroit, my university, the neighborhood, \u00a0my house, and neighbors. \u00a0No packing for a while either.\u00a0😊\u00a0 Looking for a Friday poem, I paged through one of Garrison Keillor’s anthologies (Good Poems: \u00a0for hard times, as heard on The Writers\u2019 Almanac<\/u>) \u00a0and found Gerald Locklin, a writer new to me. \u00a0Maybe new to you too. \u00a0He writes of a parent, \u00a0like many people who work here and many readers on this list who live in other places, and writes of a young adult, like many students, here and in many places.<\/p>\n

Aloud, \u00a0with pauses; \u00a0have a blest weekend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john st sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post \u00a0“<\/strong>No Longer A Teenager” \u00a0\u2014 \u00a0Gerald Locklin<\/p>\n

my daughter, who turns twenty tomorrow,
\nhas become truly independent.
\nshe doesn’t need her father to help her
\ndeal with the bureaucracies of schools,
\nhmo’s, insurance, the dmv.
\nshe is quite capable of handling
\nlandlords, bosses, and auto repair shops.
\nalso boyfriends and roommates.
\nand her mother.<\/p>\n

frankly it’s been a big relief.
\nthe teenage years were often stressful.
\nsometimes, though, i feel a little useless.<\/p>\n

but when she drove down from northern California
\nto visit us for a couple of days,
\nshe came through the door with the<\/p>\n

biggest, warmest hug in the world for me.
\nand when we all went out for lunch,
\nshe said, affecting a little girl’s voice,
\n“i’m going to sit next to my daddy,”
\nand she did, and slid over close to me
\nso i could put my arm around her shoulder
\nuntil the food arrived.<\/p>\n

i’ve been keeping busy since she’s been gone,
\nmainly with my teaching and writing,
\na little travel connected with both,
\nbut i realized now how long it had been
\nsince i had felt deep emotion.<\/p>\n

when she left i said, simply,
\n“i love you,”
\nand she replied, quietly,
\n“i love you too.”
\nyou know it isn’t always easy for
\na twenty-year-old to say that;
\nit isn’t always easy for a father.<\/p>\n

literature and opera are full of
\ncharacters who die for love:
\ni stay alive for her.<\/p>\n

\"Locklin\"<\/a><\/p>\n

b 1941<\/p>\n

https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gerald_Locklin<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, February 3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201ci stay alive for her.\u201d Today begins a weekend and some soft time for home places \u2014 Detroit, my university, the neighborhood, \u00a0my house, and neighbors. \u00a0No packing for a while either.\u00a0😊\u00a0 Looking for a Friday poem, I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2181"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2186,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181\/revisions\/2186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}