We

Margaret V.Doran

For four looooooong years we got it, or thought we did.
We understood what was expected of us by
parents, church, society; we knew their minds and
we knew what was right in our own minds.

So for those years we built walls
around our emotions and our desires.
We kept all things in control.
Oh, yeah, we got it all right.

And then we were married and you know what?
We just didn't get it.
I was not Jericho, he didn't have a trumpet
and the walls stood firm.

Through bitter frustration we still knew the minds
of parents, friends, church, society;
but we began to doubt our own sanity
for even deep love and desire could not tear down those damnable walls!

We didn't get it, though.
We thought something was wrong.
We couldn't yet understand that walls so long in the making had become
a habit hard to break.

So we worked and we tried, we loved and we cried;
we learned to take it slow.
We learned that the most important minds to know
were each others.

So we finally got it, and we got it right . . .
together.
We didn't tear down the walls, we dismantled them
brick, by brick, by brick.

Now, twenty-six years later, we may be down to the foundation,
but we've enjoyed the process so much that, who knows,
we may be lucky enough to discover several levels of basement
. . . together.




Copyright © 1997 Margaret V. Doran. All rights reserved.
If you enjoyed this poem, please send her an e-mail here.

Updated July 12, 1999
Return to Title Page