I read about Maurice Sendak’s dysfunctional family, his parents to whom he never “came out”. His parents, who lost all their kin in The Holocaust. I think about our species, capable of systematic, soul-deadening atrocity. Together, they produced this man who pronounced himself too fucked up to raise children, who never stopped being angry.

Who wrote children’s books. I pull those books from the boxes where they’ve been since my son ceased to be a child — these books, in which Sendak shared a child’s truth. I think of the millions of impressionable, but not innocent, minds that heard these stories over and over again, as they drifted off to sleep. I reflect on the power of words and pictures, and the slow course of human progress.

And I feel a little hope.

a passing lullaby, 
the freight train repeats itself, 
echoing childhood.

#midnight #haiku

(via writertogo)

smoking black firefly, 
repetitious freight train, 
echoing childhood.

#lullaby #haiku

a passing lullaby, 
the freight train repeats itself, 
echoing midnight.

#haiku