The Wrong and the Right
I knew a man, and not that long ago, Who killed himself to save his son the pain And the expense of seeing him grow old. Strange mercy, horror, crime and all the rest, Considering how though he lived abroad The two of them talked often and seemed close. All sorts of things were said, by me as well, That now I feel were surely out of place; For I don’t know the heart of either man. The pain one felt, or didn’t, or should have Then seemed of great importance to a world Where moral weights and measures situate And serve as anchors through the troubled storm. Convictions time and melancholy has Already blurred to overwhelming wrong. The lesson then: speak less, think more, be kind To things you may not understand, Feels somehow tripe, unworthy of the cost. A tale confused, not easily summed up, That makes me wish I did not write at all.