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I started writing this when
Excerpts from Poem for Richard Blanco by Vittorio Carli
I started writing this when
My science teacher, Sister Merecee, who was an old nun at St. Louis DeMontford insisted that animals can’t think (they only imitate humans), and there is no evidence for evolution. Even at ten, I thought she was an idiot. The new pope, Francis was the first who lived in the same century as me.
I started writing this when
My dad told the story of how one day when he was a child during the Great Depression, he came home and learned that his younger brother had died of a mysterious illness. He claimed he was too young to understand the situation, and it did not affect him much, but he always seemed to be holding back tears when he told the story.
I started writing this poem when
The only priest that I liked at the time at Saint Louis de Montford was a practicing psychologist (or is that psychiatrist?) and he did not talk down to people in his homilies (he was also the only priest there who incorporated new archaeological and science discoveries plus controversial current events in his sermons). He abruptly was switched to a different parish because the churchgoers thought he talked over his heads (“his words were too fancy”), and his homilies were too difficult for them to understand. That’s when I stopped going to mass regularly, and on the rare occasions I go back (usually on a holiday), I still think most priests talk to people as if they are ten which is what most parishioners want.
I went the Parliament of World Religions with my former philosophy teacher, Julian Glomb at Grant Park (tickets were 100, but he got me in for free.) I saw the Dahlia Lama speak for an hour after 200 monks chanted and he was brilliant. There were people from all different faiths including Christians, Wiccans, Native American Shamans, Jews, Catholic nuns, Muslims, Hindus, Zorastarians and Bahai
(but no Christian fundamentalists and Satanists) sharing ideas and no one judged anyone else. The experience served to elevate me, and reminded me that religion should not be only about hell and abortion. Maybe this is how Malcolm X felt when he went to Mecca; I think that was the last time I felt hope for humanity.
I started writing this poem
When we were walking around Oak Park looking for seats, and my dad was gasping for air in the heat; when he finally sat down he said “This is the last time I will ever come here.” Within a month he was dead.
