MEMORIES

CHEROKEE PRIDE

DENVER NUELL PITTMAN & HORSE GINGER?

How do we forgive our fathers?
Maybe in a dream.
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us
too often or forever...when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage,
or making us nervous because there never
seemed to be any rage there at all.

Do we forgive our fathers for marrying or
not marrying our mothers?
For divorcing or not divorcing our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses
of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning,
for shutting doors, for speaking through walls,
Or never speaking or never being silent?

Do we forgive our fathers in our age or in theirs?
Or in their deaths, saying it to them or
not saying it.
If we forgive our fathers, what is left? *

* Text taken from the movie "Smoke Signals" 1998