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Listening

By David Ignatow 1914–1997 David Ignatow

You wept in your mother's arms

and I knew that from then on

I was to forget myself.

Listening to your sobs,

I was resolved against my will

to do well by us

and so I said, without thinking,

in great panic, To do wrong

in one's own judgment,

though others thrive by it,

is the right road to blessedness.

Not to submit to error

is in itself wrong

and pride.

Standing beside you,

I took an oath

to make your life simpler

by complicating mine

and what I always thought

would happen did:

I was lifted up in joy.

David Ignatow, “Listening” from I Have a Name. Copyright © 1996 by David Ignatow. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Poetry (February 1987).

Biography

David Ignatow is remembered as a poet who wrote popular verse about the common man and the issues encountered in daily life. In all, he wrote or edited more than twenty-five books and was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize and Robert Frost Medal, the Bollingen Prize, and the John Steinbeck Award. Early in his career he worked in a butcher shop. He also helped out in . . .

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