Foresight (Updated)

September 1, 2013

Pictured above is Van Gogh's Rain. Van Gogh is my older son's favorite artist. For his 20th birthday in May of 2012, I took him to see the Van Gogh Exhibit which happened to be near our hometown that month.

He loved it. And I loved that he loved it. That day was an amazing respite from the days we'd been living. We hadn't seen each other or spoken in months at that point. He was in the midst of his diagnosis denial and living a wild life of booze and drugs.

But that day he settled down and went with me to the art exhibit. One of the features of the exhibit was an opportunity to write a haiku inspired by Van Gogh's Rain.  He and I both wrote one.

Mine:

Springtime sadness seeps

through the grey blue misty sky

waiting for my son

His:

The field swells with guilt

wallowing, faded, almost

swallowed by the view

How did we each capture the future in 17 syllables? How did we know that there would be sadness and waiting and guilt to come?  I have no idea. I have no idea. I truly, have no idea. But somehow we did. Today, a year and a half later, I would do anything to have that poetry card back again. I'd write a new haiku. 

I'd write:

Weep, misty skyline

But see the sun shining through

There is hope ahead

Oct. 6, 2013
I asked my son to write his own haiku. Here it is:

Little figures fall
building a giant steel trap
time is not wasted