The truth of heart

“Poetry is the truth of heart”,
I had boldly declared it once, years ago,
the first commandment of creation
for my then little daughter.

Her eyes shone with faith in the words,
my words. She wrote from her heart,
for she had it back then, and she wrote
a lot, for a child is all heart, and gleefully
brought it to me, her poet-father for praise.
Praise it got, sometimes. I’m sparing in praise.

She wrote for some time and then,
we made her stop. I made her stop.
“Study for your future child, you need
to enter an economically viable profession”,
I decreed. I didn’t want her to be like me.
I didn’t want my own flesh and blood,
to inherit my pains and follies. It pained,
I know, a lot and very long for her, and for me
intensely, whenever I looked at her abstaining
from writing poems and hiding her pain.

There’s guilt in my conscience, yes, there is,
but I’ll try to be objective here. Poets aren’t rich,
in general. They have never been. Famous,
some of them are, sometimes, but there are no
guarantees. I have tried my hands and mind on it,
I know. This is the truth of my mind.

She still writes sometimes, not much, only occasionally,
I know, but she doesn’t bring it to me anymore.
She has closed her heart and its truth from me,
I suspect.