Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #358 - Writerly Wednesday - Inconsolable, a poem


Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #358 - Writerly Wednesday - Inconsolable, a poem

Hi Mom,

I am aware that this poem is kind of pretentious, and I may be a little shy about it because I remember why I wrote it and when.

And yet, in choosing the poem for today, so close to the one year anniversary of your death, Mom, given that one year ago today I was watching you actively die, the title "inconsolable" seems to reach out and grab me.

I would not say that I am inconsolable, but I am not consoled. I was remarking that in many ways the one year anniversary of your dying and your death has me re-living all those feelings. So maybe it's accurate to say that I am not as consoled as I thought I was.

Last week, when I chose this poem and set it up, I wrote these lines: One aspect of going over these poems and presenting them here, poems that I have not looked at in many years, is that they act like magic spells. There's incantation here.

I still feel this way. My poems and the little darlings of turns of phrases that I love (that I would probably remove if I was a serious poet) read like incantations, and they help me.

Here's a poem I like for its use of language. But it's a herky jerky incantation. It stutters and stops. It's peripatetic, metaphorically, which is a word that sounds right, but again I am trying to force meaning from it like blood from stone.

And yet, despite the poem's short comings, I think I really nail it in the last stanza...

INCONSOLABLE
          christopher tower, 8611.14 / 8704.16

I do not deserve to touch your body;
as are horses, birds, and cats forbidden
to peer silently at your skin rippling
beneath the slightest slip of fingers.
Until I can slide the water sacked
in my flesh through weary muscles, drain
it out fingernail incisions, and mix it with
the valence of your blood, I will never dare
even the feather fall of digits upon your skin.

I do not deserve to loosen muscles,
to lubricate joints, or to untie tangled
touching routines I never learned to weave.
Beyond my reach you roll caged in an unknown
sleep.  Boiling summer darkness turns you
to and fro under sheets.  I could never finger
a broken path from toe to where legs rub,
nor scratch a relieving groan from your lips.

I haven't earned the right to arch your back,
stretch your neck, or to rub at a love of touching.
I may never unearth the secret you cradle beneath
your rocking hips but if I slow the passion's rise,
claw through my heat, and burrow from craning neck,
to bridged spine, breast, to even waist with supple
calm then I can spin water with sweeter blood,
and spread it on your skin.

I may never deserve the wisdom of your flesh,
your round, unknown body bristling with sweat
and heat.  But I do deserve my fingers and
the tender trails they weave.  And I do deserve
my lips that mingle in new water.  And what
lies beyond my reach is never far away.

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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

I miss you so very much, Mom.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 360 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1606.29 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.

Expressive woman water photography14 Expressive woman & water photography: Water, Photos, Anna Pavlova

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