“The old men come to see me.<\/p>\n
And they are wary.<\/p>\n
As men usually are.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They will submit to my touch.<\/p>\n
And can’t imagine that the<\/p>\n
hand of another man could ever<\/p>\n
help much, or for long.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I wait, imagining myself pliable.<\/p>\n
And when the sad burden of<\/p>\n
their life rises to the surface,<\/p>\n
that is what I finally palpate.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They begin to move me with<\/p>\n
their unrequited longing to rest<\/p>\n
in a place no one has encouraged them to go.<\/p>\n
And I simply follow them there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I’m doing better.” They say,<\/p>\n
“You’ve done a good job.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Like a key in a lock, their<\/p>\n
words open my heart.<\/p>\n
And I know I can never<\/p>\n
get enough of this.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The old men come to see me<\/p>\n
And for that, I will always<\/p>\n
remain here.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Old Men Come to See Me<\/em> by Barrett L. Dorko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The old men come to see me. And they are wary. As men usually are. They will submit to my touch. And can’t imagine that the hand of another man could ever help much, or for long. I wait, imagining myself pliable. And when the sad burden of their life rises to the surface, that is what I Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[124,107],"coauthors":[19],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-therapy-2","tag-clients","tag-therapist"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/trees-258-Copy.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1503,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions\/1503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}