The Madonna in Sorrow Giovanni Battista Salvi (1609-1685)
The Madonna in Sorrow
Giovanni Battista Salvi
(1609-1685)

gentlemen of the old school
those devotees of Mary …
Mother of Christ, Handmaid of the Lord
seeing her in every woman
….. generously
even me – daughter, mother, niece, friend –
protagonist, antagonist,
on-again off-again wife
simmering slowly in the broth of the cosmos
never quite done, never quite done
…..but they were …
………they were
gentlemen of the old school

dedicated to the real men in my life from whom you will not hear “locker room” talk

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved Photo ~ via Wikipedia and in the U.S. Public Domain

7 Comments

  1. Very nice, Jamie. I have had and still have so many gentle-men in my life – who have respected me and nurtured me. But the one who keeps coming to mind is Tom H. He wasn’t in my circle of friends but I went to school with him. Many years ago (50?) I was sitting next to him at a dinner gathering and all of a sudden I heard him say “women – bodies to be abused.” I froze with fork in midair and stared at him with my mouth open. The whole room became quiet and he squirmed. Now I know there are two in the world – God help us. I am hoping this discussion about race and gender will continue for a long time.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I know. That’s why I put it in quotes and also I didn’t want to even put in that name. How did we ever get into this mess, Charlie? So disappointing. Thanks for taking time to read and comment.

      Like

      Reply

Thank you!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s