Poem: Endless

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my mom

 

Endless

Fingering the past and its memories
like beads of stone

or bone, like the ivory necklace
of your mother’s you wore,

its carved spheres, milky with river
filigrees, soapy soft,

lotioned almost
like your face skin before bed

oh pressing mine, kissing me good night on my
adolescent pillow

where I was growing, thrumming into myself
drawing pictures of women’s bodies

the way I wanted mine to be
under

forbidden bone, outlawed tusk
engraved for a beautiful woman

to wear upon her neck
hanging down on her bosom

circling, rotating, revolving
in the endless orbit of a life

Listen to a podcast of this poem here.

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A new mothering poem & a national radio show

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Under the open sky

You are a constant bridge
between mother
and child.

I walk from this side
a sprout
to the other shore’s
bones

and back again
and again

through your unfolding
womb
— your opening mouth

where I go inside
and listen
to our unwrinkling
skin.

My blog friend Susan of Everyday People invited me to share three poem podcasts on her nationally aired public radio program 51% The Women's Perspective for this week of Mother's Day. Susan's excellent program focuses on issues that are relevant and resonant for all of us, not only women. The poems are ones I have previously posted at this blog and are "A world, and you in it," "Aubade" and "Little One." I'm pretty excited. (Did I say "nationally" enough times? Eeeeeeee.) The poems are on the topic of mothering, which seems to be where I live these days in my heart. The 30 minute show airs live Wednesday, May 4 at 3 PM EST on her station out of Woodstock, NY, WAMC. The program will be archived Thursday, May 5, show #1138 here. You'll be able to download an mp3 of the program at NPR here. (Yeah, well I'll probably be the only one doing that, ha.) To find a station that airs 51% The Women's Perspective, go here. Thank you, Susan, for liking my poems enough to broadcast them on your show!

UPDATE: Listen to the archive of Susan Barnett's very interesting 51% The Women's Perspective show from yesterday (archive #1138 here), a special Mother's Day edition in which Carla Goldstein explains the feminist origins of Mother's Day, and the intent of its founders to end all war. Then listen to a young woman from Ireland talk about her heartbreaking last days with her mother, who had dementia (a story I understand personally). The 30-minute program is well worth listening to. My poem "A world, and you in it" is at the end of the program. Thanks again, Susan, for hosting an important program and for airing my poem in such fine company.

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Mother's Day

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me and Mom on my wedding day, April 8, 1978

Mom with Peter in 1982

Mom and Lesley in 1981

Mom at around age 5

Lesley, with her cousins Lauren and Kelly, dressed up in my mother's old clothes; photo circa 1991

a list in the back of her devotional book

with some of the names of people she prayed for every day;

she also prayed for every world leader daily;

and of course she prayed for us kids every day too

When Don, the kids and I moved to Istanbul in 1986, she had put cards and gifts in Lesley's and Peter's backpacks to open at the start of each flight of the long journey:

1. Detroit to New York

2. New York to Frankfurt

3. Frankfurt to Istanbul

One of the cards had a music-playing chip inside that started playing Zippidy-doo-da when you opened it. The kids had that card in their toy box for at least two years, the cover eventually ripped off and just the inner white card with the tiny white button that would play when you pushed it. One day it suddenly played Happy Birthday instead of Zippidy-doo-da. I guess chips like that have more than one song in them.

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