Tread Softly

It was Matt who reintroduced me to the poem by W. B. Yeats, "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". Some poetry I just don't get, and some I don't get but I think I do, and some I get but I don't think I do. This is one of those poems that make me cry, and I am never quite sure why, but I think I get it. It falls into all three of the poetry comprehension categories I outlined above.

My Matt has wanted to be a lawyer since he was eleven. He studied law books since the middle school years, and his entire life since then has been aiming towards that goal. After a series of poor class choices and struggles his first semester as a first year student at UVa, he clawed his way out improving each year to a perfect semester which ended at Christmas. This was despite being sick the entire semester, which now we discover was not only swine flu, but Mono as well. And now, he faces an even harder set of classes, while trying to apply to law schools, and not only does he have mono, but has just also been diagnosed with a deviated septum that may explain his intense and chronic congestion and sleep problems. Surgery is a likely option, to be explored over his spring break when he has time to address it. He has a hard road ahead of him. More heartbreaking yet, had this been diagnosed anytime in the past 21 years, he might not have had to suffer through four fruitless years of allergy shots, untold illnesses, chronic congestion, and lifetime sleep disruption.

Every mother out there knows the desire to spread heaven itself beneath the feet of their beloved children, a carpet of grace and mercy and miracles that will carry them softly to their heart's desires without a cloud to bump the path. And every mother knows that she cannot. The best we can do is pray and know that smooth paths rarely strengthen us for the rocky roads that inevitably appear.

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.