MOTHER by any other name...

My stepson was the first of our four offspring to call and wish me Happy Mother's Day today. That doesn't mean the other kids are naughty, only that the designation "stepson" is misleading - though I'm not his biological mother and neither of us pretend I am, I have worried about him, loved him, gotten in his face, had his back, teased him, and nagged him since he was nine years old, every bit as tenaciously (and as annoyingly) as I did with the other kids. In my book, "mother" is any person (male or female) who will do this stuff for you, whether related by blood, by marriage, or by sheer will. My mom taught me that. So here are a couple of poems for mothers, sons & daughters. Happy Mother's Day.

TRIPTYCH

v Mother/Body

This panel is the Madonna,

whose hands have pared and cut

bitter onion, turnip, carrot,

whatever meat could be found,

have sealed it with salt, water and fire,

have buried day-old kittens,

necks snapped by a restless tomcat,

have peeled back the burnt skin

on a child’s open palm,

handprints brittle and delicate

as silvery flakes of mica,

have scrubbed stains from

a girl’s rose-patterned bedsheets,

have traced invisible, holy signs

on the skin of a man’s back,

have followed the curve

of his muscled hip,

have folded around him in prayer

v Daughter/Mind

This panel is the Magdelene,

who once lifted her foot to step over

a fallen tree branch and stopped

mid-air, caught in a rippled vision

of a tree from which the branch

might have fallen, then the constant

inescapable drip drip dripping

cascade of incessant thought—

a scored, moss-covered trunk,

thick wandering branches,

spreading fan of twigs,

intricate lacework of new growth

suspended in air, tree and not tree,

or  what space there is between,

or the nature of Tree,

her Self at the root—

She, Tree, Air, God

and Water, always Water

v Fire/Spirit

rose petals, sorrow,

mhyrr gum, desire and water

burn clean and constant

ST. DOMINIC

           

patron of choir boys

My sons, three wild choirboys,

have visions too, have wandered

in the fog. They are brilliant,

these boys who catch and sing the sun,

griefless, hysterical, or strangely quiet.

Their high notes burst like sparks

against a dark South Dakota sky.

Their low notes disturb the river’s

calm surface. Teach them to settle

disputes as you did, with relics—

thumbs or long leg bones planted

in a tenuous line of truce, flagline

between their constant thieving

companions, Need and Want.

Bully them always toward

goodness & mercy,

knock them down in the

schoolyard if you have to.