Category Archives: women

There will come a glory in your eyes.

poetry, women,

THE MOTHER

There will be a singing in your heart,
There will be a rapture in your eyes;
You will be a woman set apart,
You will be so wonderful and wise.
You will sleep, and when from dreams you start,
As of one that wakes in Paradise,
There will be a singing in your heart,
There will be a rapture in your eyes.

There will be a moaning in your heart,
There will be an anguish in your eyes;
You will see your dearest ones depart,
You will hear their quivering good-byes.
Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart,
Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice;
There will be a moaning in your heart,
There will be an anguish in your eyes.

There will come a glory in your eyes,
There will come a peace within your heart;
Sitting ‘neath the quiet evening skies,
Time will dry the tear and dull the smart.
You will know that you have played your part;
Yours shall be the love that never dies:
You, with Heaven’s peace within your heart,
You, with God’s own glory in your eyes.

-Robert Service

This is the way to enter and leave.

love, poetry, women, ,

WHAT IS OUR DEEPEST DESIRE?

To be held this way in our mother’s arms,
to be nestled deep in the warmth
of her body, her gaze,
to be adored, to overwhelm her
with our sweetness.
This is what we seek in chocolate,
in the food and drink and drugs
that stun the senses, that fill the veins
with the rich cream of well being.
What we take for lust—can it be, perhaps,
a heavy pang of longing to be swaddled,
close, close to the heartbeat of our mother?
No bucket seats, Jacuzzi, or even a lover’s embrace
can duplicate this luxuriance,
this centered place on the roiling planet.

When the old woman, small and light,
can be carried in the arms of her son,
he, at first, holds her tentatively,
a foreign doll,
but gradually, as the pool loses its ripples,
he sees his face in hers
and draws her to him,
rocking to the rhythm of her breathing.
This is the way to enter and leave the world.

-Miriam Pederson

Pablo Picasso, Mother and Son on the Shore

 

Women on the very edge of things.

feasts, poetry, women, , ,

We are celebrating the Feast of the Visitation on March 30; this is the commemoration of the visit the Virgin Mary made to her cousin Elizabeth, seemingly soon after the the Annunciation, because the Scripture says she “went with haste.” Elizabeth was also expecting a baby, the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John.

Malcolm Guite has written a sonnet for the feast, which you can find in the anthology Sounding the Seasons. In the West the feast is kept in May.

THE VISITATION

Here is a meeting made of hidden joys
Of lightenings cloistered in a narrow place
From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise
And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.
Two women on the very edge of things
Unnoticed and unknown to men of power
But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings
And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.
And Mary stands with all we call ‘too young’,
Elizabeth with all called ‘past their prime’
They sing today for all the great unsung
Women who turned eternity to time
Favoured of heaven, outcast on the earth
Prophets who bring the best in us to birth.

-Malcolm Guite

The little old lady laughs.

art, poetry, women, , , ,
Portrait of an Old Woman, Nadezda Petrovic, 1909

TABLE TALK

The little old lady laughs like a little girl, going
On with the tale of this and that happy day.
Says the little old lady, “Oh, what times were they
When I fell in love without Grandmother’s knowing!”
The little old lady is a little rogue, showing
A malicious twinkle in the depths of her eyes.
How distinct the silver of her hair one descries
Against the caramel-tinted skin glowing.

The little old lady forgets how dull or shady
Life may be; and the wrinkles laugh over her face.
Sweet tremors through her blessed old body race:
And my dear looks at me and I look at my dear,
And we laugh, and we laugh . . . all the while we hear
The white history of the loves of the little old lady.

-Manuel Magallanes Moure (1878-1924) Chile
Translated by Muna Lee