(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
At first, I thought I’d title this poem “Gordon’s Not.” Let me explain….*
On a vacation day last week, I luxuriated by “sleeping” in. Before making my celebratory breakfast of biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and pork sausage, I lay in bed watching a documentary about Gordon Lightfoot. The opening of that documentary is startling. An aged Gordon Lightfoot is explaining why he deeply regrets the words of one of his early hits: “For Lovin’ Me.” He explains that he was young, naive, and chauvinistic when he wrote it. As the documentary continued, I came to realize that I had never thought deeply about Lightfoot’s words in this and other songs. I had always just been mesmerized by his voice. That voice made everything he sang seem wholesome and true. But the man who wrote the words and sang them was not so wholesome, not so true! The documentary didn’t ruin his songs. But it was a reminder that a “a man may smile and be in pain” (Proverbs 14:13).
So, I finished the documentary, fixed my breakfast, and sat down to eat. That’s when I reflected on what I had just learned: Gordon’s not what you may have thought.
Does that shed light on my little poem?
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*I make the common mistake of misremembering “Gordion Knot” as “Gordon’s Knot”