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Shilpa KarhikThe Whipping by Robert Hayden
June 27th 2008 05:36
The Whipping
by Robert Hayden
by Robert Hayden
Robert Hayden (1913-1980)
The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:
My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful
Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,
And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged--
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.
Review in Poem by Dexter.
Child abuse, a manufactured behaviour,
An expression of frustration through violence,
A manifestation of selfish evil, a pathetic dominance.
Corrupting youth, demolishing innocence,
Physical damage heals quickly, psychological wounds eternal.
Reprogramming the gentle purity of infancy, nurturing suffering.
Strapped not for discipline, but exorcism of personal demons,
Unforgivable, destructive and polluting the adult to be,
A timeless cycle, that may never find balance between education and abuse.
This is not a maternal consequence!
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