There is always more than you know...

Garrison Keillor quotes this poem in his daily blog"

Dancing

by Margaret Atwood

It was my father taught my mother
how to dance.
I never knew that.
I thought it was the other way.
Ballroom was their style,
a graceful twirling,
curved arms and fancy footwork,
a green-eyed radio.

There is always more than you know.
There are always boxes
put away in the cellar,
worn shoes and cherished pictures,
notes you find later,
sheet music you can't play.

A woman came on Wednesdays
with tapes of waltzes.
She tried to make him shuffle
around the floor with her.
She said it would be good for him.
He didn't want to.

"Dancing" by Margaret Atwood, from Morning in the Burned House. Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Reprinted with permission.

I think Atwood puts her finger on some important elements in our often flawed understanding of what our parents were all about - and how little we really know.

Comments

[Berkie's wife]

I've missed your blogs and hope you are OK. Margaret Atwood's father was a fine scientist and a good friend of ours--Canadian. He said he was proud in his old age to be known only as "Margaret Atwood's Father."

[Gabriella]

I hope both of you are well. I wondered why you were not posting. Thanks for this one. It is a good reminder to always be ready for surprises from those who we think we know. It was at my mother's memorial service where revealed was this surprising person, my mother, who had such a rich life outside the immediate family. It was heartening to discover that she had such rich and fruitful relationships with people I didn't know and that she was so well loved and appreciated. G