When we were both younger.
Monday Morning Musings:
“Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry in the darkness.”
–Carl Sandburg, from “Poems done on a Late Night Car”
“And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
From, Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night”
Beneath the beauty–
pink, red, yellow-petaled–
nectar flows,
pollen-dusted bees
hover, their buzz
a soothing lullaby–
the sound of if, is, was,
and will be
Enter a caption
What will be?
From my mother’s body,
I came,
my earliest memory, her
(she was beautiful)
shushing me,
telling me not to wake my sister
My sister and I played,
sang the songs of Broadway
and our lives,
nonsense words became family slang
over the dinner table—
the sound of family dinners,
and playing the dictionary game.
From my body,
my daughters came.
Sisters, they played,
sang songs of Broadway
and their lives
nonsense words became family slang
over the dinner table—
the sound of family dinners,
and playing Scattergories.
They look alike,
(but they don’t)
anyone can tell they’re sisters,
the way they talk and gesture–
we look alike
(but we don’t)
anyone can tell I’m their mother,
it’s in the blood,
our souls
from bodies, the blood of
grey and green-eyed ancestors
generations stretching far back
to first hearts beating
and blood flowing
women, men,
loving, hating,
beautiful and ugly bodies
crawling, walking–
in the cold May rain
we go to see my mom
no longer young
with body failing
and mind not as sharp
(not as it was, not as she was)
but heart beating
and blood flowing,
we make her laugh
We are goofy, even here.
But serious, too.
she’s in the hospital
(first docile, now demanding)
it’s the anniversary of my dad’s death
hearts beating
and hearts not beating
once my father raged,
against the dying of the light
till he raged, no more,
body and soul both gone.
I don’t believe in ghosts
and spirits
(But I do.)
There are things in the air
we can’t see, can’t hear
the songs of stars and bees,
the humming of the moon.
Can two people share the same dream?
The woman asks in the movie—
because it happens to her and a man,
It happened to me, once long ago,
to my daughter and me
a dream forgotten now– except
“someone played a flute,”
we both say, when I mention it—
years later.
Things unexplainable,
things I hear in the air,
that I wish we had more of,
I remember singing to my babies
My mom’s cousin says,
“people remember
the songs they heard
when they were children.”
Perhaps there are things
in the air–
If we stop and listen,
the sound of stars and bees,
the humming of the moon.
Yesterday was Mother’s Day, here in the U.S. My mom has been in the hospital for the past several days. My father died on May 11, 1998. I remember going to the hospital on Mother’s Day, for what would be his last night.
My husband and I watched a Hungarian movie, On Bodies and Souls on Netflix. In it, a man and a woman share the same dream every night. (Warning: there are scenes at the beginning in a meat-packing plant, but keep watching past that.) It also features a beautiful Laura Marling song.
