Where Is She In This Dream?

Watching the man wander
between home and industry,
the apron of his trade firmly fixed,
a sparkle of grit in his coiffed beard

The children, too, find joy
in his space, running between
house and workshop,
dog bounding at their feet
proudly on guard.

An outsider
and sink bound
she moves by rote
tea towel slung over shoulder
maintains a distance –
the dream is not hers.

She waits
weights
pretends
denies

Is losing her edges
and the parameters he sets
keep shifting, and
she is falling short

and the children, now hungry
tug on her apron for acknowledgment –
their father having taught them well —
she lives to meet their needs.

What’s for supper? they whine,
already preparing to grouse:
I don’t like that!
You liked it last week, she’ll reply
Weary, she feels herself fading

A meal on the table
and the man drags his feet –
would not award her respect
to appear on time

She’ll abide the disarray
while counting to herself
the minutes till this is over
and the children are in bed
and the man has returned to work
and nothingness is hers…

The numbness of lacking a dream.

(Art my own)

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VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

52 thoughts on “Where Is She In This Dream?”

  1. Women will do everything happily if given their due, love, recognition and appreciation. Instead they are taken for granted. Very powerful and touching poem, VJ. I love your artwork.

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  10. This is so powerful…both words and art. The house can indeed be a prison for a woman. It seems we are slipping backward into expected subservience. We must fight back. We must. (K)

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  13. Also my mother. I swore to be different and to an extend I managed. There is that. I’m definitely grateful to not be an American citizen at the moment but it stifles even me, half way around the world. Strength to us all. The Patriarchy won – again.

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  17. Uffda. This one really packs a wallop. Well done, VJ. It makes me think of my mother-in-law who is now afflicted with dementia. She loved her boys but almost to the exclusion of anything else. No hobbies, no interests, no passions, no dreams. She doesn’t read. Watches her soap operas. And that is it. A sad, wasted life methinks.

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  18. it is almost tragic how little the mother / wife is appreciated. Just think how easy it could turn. If they both said thank you and danced around when they met. And the children also learnt to say thank you Mum.

    Miriam

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  20. Oh my goodness this poem tugs at my heart. So many living this poem – how is the cycle broken? Thank you VJ for the reminder of how much we with a dream have and how little those without a dream don’t have.

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