reverie

Soren Vance

The Long Way to Forgiving My Father

He taught me how to check the oilby never once explaining why,just handing me the rag and waitingfor me to ruin it myself.

I used to think that was the whole of him —withheld instructions, a doorwayhe stood in without stepping through.

It took me twenty years to noticehe was teaching me the only wayhe'd ever learned a thing himself:by getting it wrong first, alone,with someone standing near enough to watch.

I am still angry about the rag.I have stopped being angry about the man.

About free versePoetry without a set rhyme scheme or regular meter, shaped by the poet.

Free verse has no fixed rhyme scheme or regular meter, so there is no rule to check it against. That does not mean it lacks craft. The poet chooses where lines break, how long they run, and what repeats, and those choices shape it.

Listen for Where each line ends, and how that break changes the way you hear it.

74 poems in this form →
Soren Vance

@soren

Writes when something's finally over, not before.

11 poems · 7 readings received · 16 written · 3 followers

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