De Amerikaanse dichteres, schrijfster en hoogleraar transgender-wetenschappen Joy Ladin werd geboren in Rochester, New York, op 24 maart 1961. Zie ook alle tags voor Joy Ladin op dit blog.
In the Name of the Father
for my son on his 18th birthday
The son enters his father’s name
like a man entering a cabin
abandoned for years.
Hinges squeak, a spider spins
a sticky shimmer
across the single window.
The man sits, sleeps,
stamps on the floor and shakes the walls, frightens birds,
leaves the bed unmade. Locks the door behind him.
The father changes. The name remains
in the deep woods of becoming.
From time to time, the son returns
to stretch out on the bed
and watch the spider, busy above,
spinning rage into love.
A Little Bit of Ocean
Children squat on a float in the middle of the water.
The half-grown deer disappears
into a stand of juniper and bullrush. We know shells
were once alive, but it’s hard to imagine
what stones once lived. Hard to be a creature of earth
in a world covered with water. I’m not worried
about being happy. I wanted to feel:
Mission accomplished.
I wanted to recognize the shadow I cast,
to cast more light than shadow. My daughter and I
reach the buoys that hold the rope afloat. Beneath us,
darkness, pushing up.
Joy Ladin (Rochester, 24 maart 1961)