When I first stand up to my mother, when I am
fifty--and on a civic issue--
she changes, as if she's been waiting for someone
to lead her. She does not mention the beauty
of her blue eyes, but says she has been sorting
her late sweetheart's clothes--and it BREAKS
my HEART, she cries out. and then she cries,
as if she has been lowered down into
a river of music. I'm not unhappy,
she says, this is better for me than church,
her voice through tears like the low singing
of a watered plant long not watered--
and now it can be heard, her fear
of tears, as if they might take her far back
to something like the swimming of the flayed
in the flay. Now she lets me hear
the music of her self--I could be in a
cradle by the western shore of a sea, she could
be a young or an ancient mother.
Now I hear the melody
of the one bound to the mast. It had little
to do with me, her life, which lay
on my life, it was not really human life
but chemical, and approximate landscape,
trenches and reaches, maybe it
was ordinary human life.
Now my mother sounds like me,
the way I sound to myself--one
who doesn't know, who fails and hopes.
And I feel, now, that I had wanted never to stop blaming her,
like eating shelled animals
at midmolt. But now my mother
is like a bitty, shucked crier
in a tide-pool, which lies, beside my hand,
a lightly rocking cradle. I think
I had thought I would falter if I forgave my mother,
as if, then, I would lose her--and I do feel
lonely, now, to sense her beside me,
somewhere, in some night body of water,
as if she is only a sister. And yet,
though I hear her sighs close by my ear,
my mother is before me, somewhere, at a distance,
maybe near the end of her life,
the shore of the eternal--she is solitary,
when I hear her voice I hear the sound
of a woman alone, out ahead
of everyone I know, scout of the mortal, heart
breaking into solo.
fifty--and on a civic issue--
she changes, as if she's been waiting for someone
to lead her. She does not mention the beauty
of her blue eyes, but says she has been sorting
her late sweetheart's clothes--and it BREAKS
my HEART, she cries out. and then she cries,
as if she has been lowered down into
a river of music. I'm not unhappy,
she says, this is better for me than church,
her voice through tears like the low singing
of a watered plant long not watered--
and now it can be heard, her fear
of tears, as if they might take her far back
to something like the swimming of the flayed
in the flay. Now she lets me hear
the music of her self--I could be in a
cradle by the western shore of a sea, she could
be a young or an ancient mother.
Now I hear the melody
of the one bound to the mast. It had little
to do with me, her life, which lay
on my life, it was not really human life
but chemical, and approximate landscape,
trenches and reaches, maybe it
was ordinary human life.
Now my mother sounds like me,
the way I sound to myself--one
who doesn't know, who fails and hopes.
And I feel, now, that I had wanted never to stop blaming her,
like eating shelled animals
at midmolt. But now my mother
is like a bitty, shucked crier
in a tide-pool, which lies, beside my hand,
a lightly rocking cradle. I think
I had thought I would falter if I forgave my mother,
as if, then, I would lose her--and I do feel
lonely, now, to sense her beside me,
somewhere, in some night body of water,
as if she is only a sister. And yet,
though I hear her sighs close by my ear,
my mother is before me, somewhere, at a distance,
maybe near the end of her life,
the shore of the eternal--she is solitary,
when I hear her voice I hear the sound
of a woman alone, out ahead
of everyone I know, scout of the mortal, heart
breaking into solo.
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