My friend told me she sobs
watching the 6:30 news.
From this I learned I am a man.
I do not sob.
A tank crushes an old man in a car.
I do not sob.
Bombs blast against babies.
I do not sob.
Millions flee home.
I do not sob.
A family dies on a street before cameras.
I do not sob.
Three killed in a birth building.
I do not sob.
Hunger and thirst dig into a city.
I do not sob.
Walls fall burning.
I do not sob.
A mother cries at her dying son’s side.
I do not need a translator to tell me her pain.
Yet, I do not sob.
What is wrong with me?
Is it because I am a man,
taught the ancient mantra that men don’t cry?
The best I can do,
my heart aches,
a silent tear comes to my eye.
If the world were to end in a flash of war
it will not be caused by a sobbing woman.
It will be caused by a man who cannot cry.
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This poem emerged from talking to a friend and two cultural treasures, Pablo Picasso’s series of paintings titled
Weeping Women and the poems of Polish poet Tadeusz Rozewicz (1921-2014) collected in Sobbing Superpower, 2011