Jack Pelham

Surely caring
About about important things
Is among the most underrated
Of the virtues.

It is possible to sully
Even the most wonderful idea
With your pride in
Being the one who had it, or
Being the one who’s presenting it.

What vanity it is
To bear either conceit
Or shame
Over the deeds
Of one’s ancestors,
As if we had done those deeds ourselves.

James wrote this in 2016, at 13 years old—for Father’s Day, I suppose. I had forgotten about it until it came up in my FB memories. He comments on some things I had done quite on purpose. Glad it worked out so well!

Perhaps no one can appreciate
As much as you do
The great effort you have expended
In providing a non-answer
To the question.

It’s getting so old
That it’s almost not funny anymore—
That error by which we take Him literally
When He was speaking figuratively,
Or vice versa—

There is surviving the injury itself,
And there is surviving
Whatever one tells oneself about it.

I simply must remember
That he who sounds like a jerk
May simply be a poor communicator.

It’s stupid, you say,
To start working a puzzle
Before you’ve got all its pieces
Laid out on the table.

I saw a snake—
Quite a large one, actually—
And some days afterward,
When most of the excitement had subsided,
I realized in my quieter moments
That I had begun to feel as if,
By appearing to me unannounced as it had,
The thing had done me wrong,
And owes me an apology.

But I try to be fair about these things,
And I should tell you that
After ample consideration,
I have not yet imagined a way
By which the thing
Might have broken it to me gently
That it was there.