The Value of a Man

In my life as a woman, I have met and talked to a great number of men who are afflicted by something very sad, almost yes even tragic: the feeling that as men they are failures. Not because they are indecent, insincere or horrible people--but because they don't have a fancy car, big paying job, enough hair left on their head, or they are cursed to be 5'6" in a 6 foot tall man's kind of world.

So many of these men are hurting inside, silently and yet desperately flailing to keep from drowning in the seas of their presumed failures. They filter everything through their feelings of failure to "measure up" often never acknowledging their true gifts and abilities and what they actually do have to offer. Many remain unpaired, unmarried, and "homeless" in their hearts.

An excerpt from a Pablo Neruda poem captures the essence not of men's failures, but the failures of those who value the outward, not the inner:

What a pity that I have nothing to give you except
the nails of my fingers, or eyelashes, or
pianos melted by love
or dreams which pour from my Heart in torrents,
dreams covered with dust,
dreams full of velocities and misfortunes

I can love you only with kisses and
poppies, with garlands wet with rain


What a pity that I have nothing to give you except the nails of my fingers: working fingers to the bone, digging a driveway by hand, with a shovel in the rain, not paying for a big bulldozer to come in and do the work in an hour, but digging and moving rock by hand because that is the physical urge of a man, to feel rain drizzling on his face, his muscles working for a necessary purpose,not just pumping iron in a closed up sweaty gym.

What a pity that I have nothing to give you except pianos melted by love: that someone could play music so intensely, with fingers led by a muse so strong and full of life and love that the piano itself would just melt.

What a pity that I have nothing to give you but Dreams which pour from my heart in torrents: that a man could profess and share his innermost thoughts and dreams without fearing judgement for not achieving them yet. To hear a man talk at length for hours on a midnight phone about his boyhood dream of one day becoming an astronaut. Flying to the moon to blow his mother a kiss. The dreams can be enough without having to back them up with a three thousand dollar a month paycheck, or by trophies, plaques, or awards.

I can love you only with kisses and poppies. I can't give you jewelry or a split-level home with new wall to wall carpet--only kisses. I know of many women married to wealthy men who have all the gadgets and niceties and yet--no kisses to give. Love you only with kisses--who does not want the kisses? What is a diamond necklace next to the thousands of kisses that could sparkle in a lover's eyes?

What a pity indeed that so many men nowadays have none of this poetry to give. That they judge themselves by their financial worth, their investments, their Ira's. The greatest failure of all is to be valued by outward successes, not inner ones.

When will men and women alike see that it is the gift of poetry, of genuine expression of dreams shared and kisses and "garlands wet with rain" that truly make a man worthwhile? When will people wake up to the fact that there ARE women in this world who want the kisses and the pianos melted by love and the dreams full of velocities and misfortunes?