Daughter #10: Everything, and One Thing

Daughter #10: Everything, and One Thing

My daughter, you are born today with nothing

It's up to me to arm you for the fray

You must be decked with words, and thoughts, and something

Something that will keep the pain away

I'll name you with a string of names that's endless

For light, and dance, and strength, and love, and nerve

For women who'll surround you when you're friendless.

Then I can send you off without reserve.

I'll drive you to the edge of what I know

And drop you off to brave the world at last

But on that day, I think, before you go

I'll watch you turn to me, your fading past

You'll lean in close, so only I can hear

And whisper your own name into my ear.

Daughter # 8: Harriet

Daughter # 8: Harriet

My days have brushed steel highlights in my hair

These babies I am birthing are my last

My cronehood beckons. Yes, these babes are rare.

Their youth draws near. I have to teach them fast.

Here's Harriet, hearth keeper, my right hand

Who scrubs and cleans, who cooks and mends, who sweeps

And sings, as though her life were all unplanned

And we weren't desperate for the hearth she keeps.

My Harriet, my girl who plots to be

My child of dust, of mud and soot and clay,

I mean to teach her, but she teaches me

She keeps me grounded when I drift or stray.

I've named her and I've taught her all I know

She's here to stay. That means now I can go.

Two Bumpy Mother-Sonnets, Mother-Sonnets 4 & 5

Napowrimo's challenge today: the golden shovel. Taking a poem, write your own, using each word of the original poem to end each line of yours. In other words, read down the last word of each line below to read the original poem (This Is Just to Say, William Carlos Williams's perfect little poem).  Two Bumpy Sonnets Mother-Sonnets #s 4 & 5 My Mother of Snuggles Always the plump ones, the chubby duet, you and I Food issues everywhere: why can't we have what they have? Sugar cubes, pineapple hearts, eagle eye on what's eaten Dreaming of lightness and flatness - the miracle - the But - the hunger - the wanting - the craving - not plums Not the sweet multicolors of fruit in a bowl - no, not that Not something you even could name, but there we were In a wide-open heaven of tastes, two fatties locked in. Where did it start for you, my mama? the Stylish, resentful mother you had? the icebox Of East Coast chic and taste who admonished and Watched you? And does it still matter, after all, which Childhood pattern, which lifetime of hurt, made you My cuddlesome, bounceable mama, who you were? Maybe It's Simpler Let's think this through again together. Probably If you had a meanie to mother you and my saving Grace was that I had you for a mother, for A pillow/pillar, a laugh/snuggle playmate, a breakfast Songstress for always, then maybe it isn't - forgive Me - at all about childhood or hurt. Forgive me But maybe it isn't about something missing. They come at us with theories but maybe we just were Chubby. Maybe life was full of delicious Things that we wanted. You wanted. I wanted, and so We said yes. But then rules. But then hankering! Sweet Things everywhere. Wanting the yummies and Wanting flat tummies and not getting either, so Torn and confused. No wonder we run hot and cold.

Mother-Sonnet # 3 / Charm # 3

One Last Magic Charm for You, Barbara

Mother-Sonnet # 3

A pocket with the tooth that made her cry

A dusting of the glamorous she was

A locket with the answer to your "why?"

A humming of your daddy's city buzz

The imprint of yourself the porch swing kept

Two phone calls from the neighbors in a box

A feather from the pillow where you slept

The trailing thread from all your bobby socks

A secret knowledge that you were adored

The screeching of the disappearing years

And then, all piled up in a secret hoard

Her wild and tidy hopes for you and fears

To catch you when you fall, and fall, and fall -

To make your childhood happy after all

Green scarf - Mother-sonnet #2

Last night the Bibliomancy Oracle gave me:

Funny how we hunker down in our little canoes 
in the middle of the scummy green swamp and wait and wait 
for hope to appear, for ghosts to die and come back as bodies.

*

from “The Lord God Returns” by Susan Wood

---------

I don't think that the first stanza here is quite working. It was fun to play with but I think I would have had to keep doing that kind of breaking or not even start with it. Not sure!

Mother Sonnet #2

It's funny how you permed your hair, and Ruth-

y saved the scarf. The dark green, torn and wrink-

led scarf we watched you wear throughout our youth.

The curlers underneath the green were pink.

We pass the scarf now back and forth by mail.

We did it even when you were around.

You downsized and the scarf just tipped the scale.

It's funny how the scarf wants to be found.

We wait. The scarf appears. And wait again.

A passing game for me and Ruthy now.

Who has it next? Where did it go? And then

It disappears in drawers till - blam, kapow!

The scarf comes back. And with it, just a scent

Of you again, the way you came and went.