Do no go Gentle

I was recently asked who my favourite poet is.

Even though I don’t know much more of his work, my response was Dylan Thomas for his deeply moving and challenging “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”.  A poem to his father, who had led a militant and active life, and who Thomas despairingly watched become weak and gentle on his final descent.

I read this out at my father’s funeral; a very small family-only affair.  My father had few friends.  For the most part, he wasn’t a good man, but he was ours.  He was already an old man by the time I arrived.  At 45, he had no practice loving or looking after anyone but himself, so I guess he had trouble showing that love to his wife and family.  He had so much potential, and achieved amazing things in his early life.  But somehow he let that die and allowed his anger, fuelled by way too much alcohol, to suffocate his good sense. 

I can’t remember many days that were not filled with either anger, or the overwhelming fear that it was almost upon us.  A childhood lived on egg-shells, his mood often divined by the speed at which he drove up our driveway returning from the jobs he always seemed to hate, and which he seemed to pack in with a walk-out or final angry moment.

When his power over us had begun to wane, I learned to stand up to him.  I suppose this is what made me determined to stand up to Dumb Boss every day – to stand up for my principles and not allow him to make me live in fear the way I had all those years.  Once someone asked me why I resisted him.  My ethics and my role as General Counsel was one reason; probably my childhood was the other.

I always thought of my father when I read the poem, wanting him to make more of a fighter for real life.  I always cry when I read this, especially when I reach the part about catching and singing the sun in flight; living in grief and not even realising it until too late.  Sucking the last out of moments when you are nearly out of them.  It speaks to me of thinking you achieve so much in your life, only to realise in the end that time has passed, the sun has nearly set; you wasted it. 

Corporate life is just like that.  You keep going, Christmas after Christmas races by and suddenly you realise how much time is behind you, and how even less is before you.  And, in the end, what have we achieved?  I suppose that Dumb Boss counts his money.  I try and count the things I made better; treating people with kindness and fairness; helping people to be better leaders; better outcomes for the organisation because I was there.

So in the words of Mr Thomas:

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

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