Consider the Context
By Niall Twohig
Ma says there was
nothing redeemable
about her father,
my Lolo.
A stranger to me,
all I hear are stories:
him beating her with ratan,
him chasing her up trees,
him smacking her
when she spoke up
or out of turn.
Looking at you little Aislynn,
I wonder:
How could a dad do that to his kid?
How could someone do that to any kid?
Nothing redeemable about him.
Likely true. He seems a monster.
But still I wonder:
Was there something in the soil
in which he grew
that grew him into a monster?
I wonder about their poverty;
about the fact that he was jobless and unmanned;
about the colonial, imperial, dictatorial regimes
that robbed the provinces—
robbed them of what?
More than wealth.
Robbed of conditions
that make it easier to be good.
I wonder about the violence
before him, outside him,
that seeped inside his family,
that seeped inside his being,
that seeped inside Ma’s being
with each beating.
I wonder these things—
Not to explain away his violence,
Not to convince Ma to forgive him—
but to consider the context
that shaped his violence.
If I don’t consider the context
I don’t get at the gnarled roots
that allow monsters to be born.
If I don’t consider the context
I don’t get at the gnarled roots
still around me
still in me,
still twisting
my thought, my word, my deed
towards a violence
akin to his.