In the End, Knowing Doesn’t Mean Much
Doug Knowlton
Never had much to say. Thought it was about my parents drilling
the notion into me, seen not heard. It could be why
taking up the guitar at fourteen
and singing poems was a thing
for a few years. When I got religion
there was lots of important stuff to say
about ideas it was easy to believe one might know
something about, but when the spout
clogged, it was time to consider
other possibilities. Then, we learned
silence. How to listen. How to ask
questions that might help
someone else speak their innermost words
for what might be the first time. Or last.
Listening was good. We learned to listen.
It was just something like a lot of other things
forgotten . . . and wasn’t I wounded enough
to come alongside with feeling – and be a healer. Yes.
Made a career out of it. Being with.
Lots of listening. Sitting Shiva.
Saying little or nothing. Asking the next question.
Redirecting the conversation.
Being was doing. Being with was knowing enough.
Then, she died.
And I had so much to say I had to go somewhere quiet
and write poems.
As if writing could stanch the fear
of how,
now
anything might happen.
Doug Knowlton was raised in Huntington, New York, and attended schools in Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Michigan. He spent twenty years employed in various psychiatric facilities and community mental health services. During the last ten years he found his bliss working in bookstores. Filling notebooks full of scribbles began in 1967 as a way to deal with the inconceivable, and occasionally find beauty in the moment. Writing poems and song lyrics was always a way of expressing the inexpressible and connecting with parts of himself and others not available through other means.