The Common Life, The Exceptional Life Poem by Dennis Ryan

Thursday, December 1,2011


I share this common life with my wife,
my sons and perhaps a few friends.
I share in their suffering, and perhaps
they too in mine.In one sense, it's
a life like any other, an ordinary life
comprised of tasks, keeping appointments,
holding out hope, trying not to disappoint.
In another it's exceptional, and I am learning
daily to cope with the exceptionality: I can't help
but share in the suffering of one of my sons
because he has been traumatized by police
violence so extreme that he developed PTSD.
(The police are capable of anything because
they have no shame.None.)My son'slife
has been "heroic" in a sense though he would
not think or say so, so I say it here for him—
for him. In the end, I'm not sure this sharing
will make a difference, but right here and now,
in testifying to the fact, as witness to the trauma,
the ptsd, it makes all the difference in the world.