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