PERSONAL
Don’t take it personal, they said; but I did, I took it all quite personal —
the breeze and the river and the color of the fields; the price of grapefruit and stamps,
the wet hair of women in the rain — And I cursed what hurt me
and I praised what gave me joy, the most simple-minded of possible responses.
The government reminded me of my father, with its deafness and its laws,
and the weather reminded me of my mom, with her tropical squalls.
Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness Think first, they said of Talk
Get over it, they said at the School of Broken Hearts
but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t believe in the clean break;
I believe in the compound fracture served with a sauce of dirty regret,
I believe in saying it all and taking it all back
and saying it again for good measure while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries
like wheeling birds and the trees look seasick in the wind.
Oh life! Can you blame me for making a scene?
You were that yellow caboose, the moon disappearing over a ridge of cloud.
I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard; barking and barking:
trying to convince everything else to take it personal too.
-Tony Hoagland
Gladsome Lights 
Wow. This one packs a wallop for me. Thanks, Gretchen!
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What Jeanie said!
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Thanks for posting this today. Would you be willing to share your thoughts about this poem.
I have been reading your blog for quite awhile and I always find what I read soul nourshing. Thank you!
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Hmmm…. Well, I’d say this poem expresses the way most people start out thinking that the world is all about me, me, me. What I like or dislike, what pleases me or hurts me; whom can I blame, whom can I rant to, about all the things. Our minds naturally fill with emotional and confused thoughts like a whirlwind that produces nothing but more of a mess. I don’t know if the person speaking in the poem gets beyond a stoic kind of attitude at the end, as in, “This is just the way things are; don’t take it personally. Calm down and buck up.” The poem stops there. A Christian would want to seek God’s will and not his own, to thank God in everything, and be not a barking dog but a messenger of peace and of God’s love.
There’s no doubt much more that could be said about the poem, if I were more astute. Because I’m not, I rarely comment on the poems that I post; also, in most cases they are saying something that can’t be “explained” in simple prose. That’s why we need poetry! Thank you for leaving a comment, Patricia. I appreciate knowing that you have been reading here.
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Thank you for your most generous response. I appreciate your gentle nature and hearing some of your thoughts about the poem.
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My gosh, the mother’s tropical squalls!
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