from "A Lament for the Makers" by Anne Stevenson
But now it's here,
the season of deciduous souls,
gold smouldering to umber
when the sun illuminates
briefly that reredos of beeches
with Byzantine fire.
A last, late finger of grace
still brightens far reaches
of a barbarous empire
lyrically and lovingly.
Most of what we write
time will erase.
I just finished my certification review papers for HypnoBirthing. The writing is not nearly as lovely or as lyrical as these words by Stevenson. Concentrating so hard on the power of the subconscious mind for several hours today, I forgot all about my own Inner Mind. I told Scott at dinner time that I felt low. Maybe just the hard work of growing a baby? The news that Republican splinter groups are recruiting (and we aren't talking about Sarah Barracuda)? The thought of a doula colleague accompanying clients to a Caesarean birth for their breech baby tomorrow? A full day of indigestion?
No, these things are not the cause. The cause is that today is November 10, and I miss my mama. She was born on this day in 1950 in Butte, America. Her birthday was always associated with a bit of sadness for me, falling as it does next to Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day and Armistice Day. It isn't the same as a birthday, for example Noah's, that happens when the tulips are popping up and Easter hope lifts us above our human failings. Or even my own that falls in the dark of winter, with all the sparkling stars and perfectly shining snow to show that light will overcome. The November birthday is one that is clearly there amidst the human strife, the pain of life, and dying leaves.
I wouldn't have you think that I am drowning in alligator tears. No, many happy images float past the aperature of my conscious mind now that I am aware of what I was living today. The pig squealing free round the garden with a slippered Mary Beth in pursuit, the clicking of her knees as she ran her miles while I cycled alongside, her penchant for hooded sweatshirts. My mother was the original hoodie.
Obviously, Inner Mind was celebrating and memorializing this morning as I chose a far-less-than-flattering brown hooded sweatshirt handed down to me by a friend who shrunk it. I have even been wearing the hood, and my slippers, and considering how, if heartburn weren't a real concern, an amaretto coffee would be just the swill.
No, these things are not the cause. The cause is that today is November 10, and I miss my mama. She was born on this day in 1950 in Butte, America. Her birthday was always associated with a bit of sadness for me, falling as it does next to Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day and Armistice Day. It isn't the same as a birthday, for example Noah's, that happens when the tulips are popping up and Easter hope lifts us above our human failings. Or even my own that falls in the dark of winter, with all the sparkling stars and perfectly shining snow to show that light will overcome. The November birthday is one that is clearly there amidst the human strife, the pain of life, and dying leaves.
I wouldn't have you think that I am drowning in alligator tears. No, many happy images float past the aperature of my conscious mind now that I am aware of what I was living today. The pig squealing free round the garden with a slippered Mary Beth in pursuit, the clicking of her knees as she ran her miles while I cycled alongside, her penchant for hooded sweatshirts. My mother was the original hoodie.
Obviously, Inner Mind was celebrating and memorializing this morning as I chose a far-less-than-flattering brown hooded sweatshirt handed down to me by a friend who shrunk it. I have even been wearing the hood, and my slippers, and considering how, if heartburn weren't a real concern, an amaretto coffee would be just the swill.
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3 comments:
If it's the sweatshirt i'm thinking of, i'm touched!
I send you poem offline.
The very one, Kev. I am so glad that in the shrinkage the hood stayed proportioned for afros like mine!
Wish I could have transported you over here for a café renversé with us at the Bain de Pacquis that (unusually sunny) morning!
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