Teach me reverence;
I am losing ground
Children adulting,
mothering in a void
Teach me acceptance
disability’s waters flood
I am in the margins,
an afterthought…
I concede life changes
release control…
Passion begs an outlet;
I am worn…
And I am open…
Teach me.
(Teach Me first appeared here January 2020. Edited for this edition. Art my own)
Between festive preparations
and Mother’s dying wishes
I walk a surreal line – numbed
surface belying broiling depths
I will serve the bird, scrape
the carcass, sing praises
and slip into solitude to grieve –
Mother’s flesh languishing.
(Last year, when I penned this poem, my mom was contemplating assisted dying. I supported her wish, but not without accompanying grief. This year, her absence weighs heavily on the preparations for Christmas, and I know I am not alone. Many of us feel our losses even deeper at this time of year.)
Mother followed all the trends –
Scarsdale and grapefruit diets,
minis and maxis,
platforms and pumps –
reaching for an ideal
my child’s mind
could not comprehend
Father dreamt of a voice makeover
had flown his ancestral roots
in search of…what?
I did not know
I learned that men
were to be pleased,
and compassion
was a woman’s role
and it was folly to hazard
confrontation when alcohol
was in the mix,
Intangible as life was
I deduced that secrets –
the avoidance of scandal –
rendered women ineffective
and by the very circumstance
of my birth, I was tainted,
weighted by shame
destined to endure
pain as love
invested in
my worthlessness
Except life is evolution
and rage emerges
from oppression
and conviction
smashes the impotence
of ideals, embraces
the abstracts
of fluidities,
and merging out of shame
I see that struggle
is opportunity
and that rewriting legacies
is an honourable goal
and I do have power
in any given moment…
only wish
I had known it
sooner.
(Art my own)
The pot simmering on the stove
really should be boiling, but
baby needs changing, and
He-who-is-charged-
with-watching-the-children
is asleep in his chair…
Where to lay the infant –
her soiled and sodden diaper
threatening its own release –
when her siblings
have dragged all the bedding –
fort-intended, now abandoned
under foot?
Turkey is in the oven
legs trussed, flesh
buttered and salted…
Baby’s skin is red
her squirming legs
noncompliant
Dog offers his presence
curious nose intervening…
I leave the wriggling bundle
to dispose of offending nappy –
images of dog mouthing contents
beyond current capacity
Children’s giggles signal
misadventure, as bath water
spills into the room,
husband stirring,
“Smells good!” says he
pushing buttons
on the TV remote
Ankle deep in water
contents of pot now burning,
awareness dawns –
the forgotten baby
is now missing…
madness achieved.
(Another dream inspired nonsensical poem. Image my own)
Crevices fragrant
with rot of genetics –
this path is a minefield
Father’s legacy
has scarred any sense
of valour – tried running
But history is tricky,
catches us winded,
regurgitates tragedy
(Originally appeared on Twitter. Image my own)
Paralysis desecrates floorboards
leaves me suspended…
the skeletons of lost dreams
sprawled out beneath me…
disordered
I am powerless
against the nightly haunts:
a dispirited youth
a righteous mother,
that lonesome child…
Judgment has a long shadow
and slits for eyes…
I don blinders –
tunnelled between
guilt and loathing
This onslaught,
this psychic terrorism
mocks my immobility
forces me to mine
forgotten pith
Survival, instinctual,
steels against the assault
raises prayer
as antidote
An armless attempt
to assert will over fear –
hoping strength restores
vulnerability’s war cry.
(Image mine)
Mama says wear red shoes
Gives a woman power
But I wobble and stumble
six inches makes me tower
So I trade in my stilettos
for a crimson pair of docs
and much to Ma’s dismay
some days I don crocs
It’s not the shoes that determine might
I tell her, but the soul in the fight.
(Photo: Mom and red accessories – shoes no doubt match. She is posing with her baby brother.)
I didn’t know about the wasps
before I had carried my toddler
across the darkened room
laid her in a bed, crawling
Clutched her sleeping body
close to my chest, turned
to retreat, but the swarm
gathered there at the door
My cousin punched a hole
in a wall, unable to discern
the exit in a smoke-filled room.
The hole remains; she doesn’t
Strangers came to her funeral
drawn by the mystery of the girl
(name unknown) who died
such a tragic death, just 18.
How did this invasion happen
how was I remiss in noticing
that this house of potential
was being consumed by threat?
Unlike my ill-fated kin,
I knew where the door was
braved it to save my child
ignored the prophetic warning
Look back at the ruins now –
hers and mine – the patterns
of abandonment, familial
neglect, disinterest a plague
How we women try to please
carry our children through
the flames, choking on
disappointment… hope
A man lit the flame that killed her,
just as a man suffocated my spirit
threads of sanity carrying me
till my mind escaped the wasps
(Ink and watercolour mine)
Trees have a story,
buried in their roots,
refined by seasonal passages,
etched in scarred bark
Birds know these stories
Sing their praise, unapologetic –
and we can hear them too,
if we only learn to listen
I have a story
birthed from parental lips
delineated by the jostling
of our many limbed life
It states that I am the good one,
the responsible, the brilliant,
the child of hope and valour…
this story is not mine
I am a tree, whose scars
suggest a history, whose roots
remain hidden, and whose voice
was lost in familial tempests
The birds know it, though
and carry my essence
on winged notes, back
to source, where I am written.
(Art my own)
A branch is falling,
family tree faltering
Where do new sprouts bud
when major limbs have died?
Orphaned mood fearful of rot.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own)
One Woman's Quest 