Amok No More
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8 years ago
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This was published in Calliope Nerve.
ReplyDeleteWoman With Her Head in Her Hands
Among the sterile statuary
glazed landscapes
scumbled sunlights
silken ferns
Sat a young woman
with her head
in her hands
Art’s crusaders passed her by
nature’s philistines
clawing recognition
Still the stone-like
blue-jeaned figure
sobbed
Creation within her
the universe
manifest
Sculpting her future
Designing life
She sat among the
hallowed contrivances
Not one work in that barren gallery
had been created
during times of peace
Surely, the artist
on the bench
relative to the
chaos din about her
deserved the tears
of mothering art
© 2009 Til Turner
This will appear in Counterexample Poetry in July.
ReplyDeleteGratitude
I remember running free
among the cattails and bluebells,
slashing spider webs with twigs
and singing to the birds in trees.
She would call from our broken porch
that dinner was ready and to be quick.
The amber-tipped summer grass
waved in the dusk as I ran to the home
we had made since father had passed.
Sitting at the knifed-gouged table, I could
see her shifting her weight to her hickory leg,
as she stood at the kitchen sink garnishing our plates
with fresh parsley she’d pulled from the garden.
Her labored breath, like a slow metronome, was meditative,
and a faint melody could be heard under her breath,
one she was too timid to sing aloud.
She possessed the silence of a burdened animal,
moving forward unnoticed by most until she stopped
and drew attention from all. She had a rare beauty,
one you would expect from a life of toil and good will.
I use to think of her as burnished, like a marvelous river stone
that becomes more graceful and smooth as it is tumbled about
on the coarse beds, never remembering its origin or knowing its
destination. She buried all her children, save me. And the love
of her life, who she’d met in the one-room school house
a mile away, left her, unable to recognize her face, as he
drifted into the immensity of eternity.
Throughout the day you could hear the faint tune of
some unknown song under her breath. I once asked
where she had heard a certain song, and she merely smiled
and replied, “In my heart.” I would walk to school trying to make
my own songs, but it was impossible. She, however, did it effortlessly,
everyday, the way she did all her work and acts of kindness. She
had a gift.
The willow tree she had planted many years before
swayed like lion’s mane in the cool autumn breeze
the day she passed. Days later, many friends from nearby
farms brought food out of gratitude for the many burdens she
had lifted from their lives. Some spoke of drink, others money, others
abandonment, but one small elderly woman, wearing a bonnet and broad smile,
took my hand and said that of all the people she had ever known my mother was
the kindest and most valuable, for she had given her the gift of music which
she used every day. The woman turned and walked back to the picnic table as the
sun started to set. I entered the kitchen and sat at the table,
where I had not sat in many years, and as the gossamer figure of my mother stood quietly singing at the kitchen sink, I began hearing a song of my own for the first time in my life.
©2009 Til Turner
Til, of course your poems are beautiful! Congratulations on getting published!
ReplyDelete