The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare Through the hollow of an ear; Wings beating about the room; The terror of all terrors that I bore The Heavens in my womb. Had I not found content among the shows Every common woman knows, Chimney corner, garden walk, Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes And gather all the talk? What is this flesh I purchased with my pains, This fallen star my milk sustains, This love that makes my heart’s blood stop Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones And bids my hair stand up?
When the doctor suggested surgery and a brace for all my youngest years, my parents scrambled to take me to massage therapy, deep tissue work, osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine unspooled a bit, I could breathe again, and move more in a body unclouded by pain. My mom would tell me to sing songs to her the whole forty-five-minute drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty- five minutes back from physical therapy. She’d say that even my voice sounded unfettered by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang, because I thought she liked it. I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore. Today, at her age, I was driving myself home from yet another spine appointment, singing along to some maudlin but solid song on the radio, and I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet.
-Ada Limón
I’m pretty sure the photo was taken by Farm Girl Kim; used with permission ❤
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.
Here is another poem by Miriam Pederson. Though she refers to mothers, in my case it makes me think more of my grandmother.
One tradition I was fond of in the Presbyterian church of my childhood was tied to Mother’s Day, when every person in the congregation was noticed for having a mother, and given a rose to commemorate her. I am not certain about this, but I think it was a white rose if she had died, a red rose if she were living. It might have been the first time I as a child was made to feel equal in some way to the adults. We all had mothers, and my rose was no different from everyone else’s.
MOTHERS NEWLY GONE
Our mothers are leaving us. One by one they flutter through the door as if we had expected it, as if we had prepared for this good-bye. We can hardly follow their recipes. Their remedies for flu, for heartache, are somewhere in the cupboard; the names of relatives to be invited are mixed in with the old Green Stamps. How can we, their busy daughters, sew on patches to make things last? What are we to do with these old compacts, these letters, cards and cold creams? How will we behave without their disapproving frowns, their Listen, honey… their Oh, sweetheart! We’re standing up straight, we’re being kind, and we’ve sent off the thank-you notes, but they are minding other business beyond the blue, leaving us in middle age to sift through their precious lives for clues to who we are.
Gladsome Lights 