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| Missouri River in flood, June 4, 2011, NASA Earth Observatory photo on OurAmazingPlanet.com |
A
MOTHER’S WATERSHED
Motherhood’s
the wide, green river curving through the heart,
beginning
to beginning, watering the tilted plain and surging
through
my veins, emerging now and then, mysteriously salinized.
It burns the skin; the eyes turn into lakes, emitting rivulets that
carry off the residue of transitory misery or happiness,
neglected joy, and bittersweet remembrance.
carry off the residue of transitory misery or happiness,
neglected joy, and bittersweet remembrance.
At too
great a distance from her watershed I am bereft, without a
home or
compass. Safe beside her, I am known and cherished,
strong
and capable, refreshed, refreshing, blessed, eternal. Just
tonight
she has reminded me that it is time to fill the bottles from
her wells.
That must be why I am so thirsty. I’d forgotten: There's
no virtue in the kind of sacrifice that weakens me. I, too, am
no virtue in the kind of sacrifice that weakens me. I, too, am
mother of
a hundred streams. Depleted, how can I be generous?
Everything
I plant in gardens on her slopes and in her valleys
flourishes,
oblivious to drought and flood, in sun or shade. Her
spirit
thrives in maple trees and terraces of pungent herbs, in
groves of
lilac, vines of wild rose. Hers is a subtle presence,
growing
lush just as the summer wanes, in towers of
chrysanthemums,
in harvesting of apples, pears, and plums.
Because of
her protection, by her foresight, in her love and grace—
thus am I
snug all winter long. She has put up enough for
sustenance
and liberality, for fellowship and charity. Don’t
worry, I
can hear
her murmur. God is good, there are
provisions in the
cellar, and abundant game runs in the wood.
There is
neither benefit nor leisure for indulging in the shame of
having
taken her for granted, nor should I blame myself for
offering
a song or fragrance not the same as hers, for of necessity
our
courses separated long before (I thought) they ought to have.
Unable to
go back, impelled by currents I had no control of, I have
faced
implacably great cliffs of stone. Had I not known she waited
on the
other side, I might have stayed and gathered to myself the
streams
that chance and gravity had given me. I could have settled
like a
placid lake in such a Canaan, if it were indeed the Promised
Land and
it had been my destiny to populate that fertile valley. But
the bottom
would not hold; I must go on or be absorbed, and I
was born
to sing and on the strength of just one chorus, honed to
honesty,
could slice through bedrock, if need be, to force my way
beyond
the granite gates and flow again beside my source.
And I had
generations to propel to greatness of their own in time,
not mine
to choose, thank God for that; thank Heaven that I finally
knew how
many rocks I need not move. The hurdles would make
way for
me or not, regardless of how hard I pushed, without
respect
to karma or the stories I’d created, saying, Stumbling
blocks, remove yourselves and go impede somebody else.
As it
turned
out, they were as porous as the sand. I simply drifted
through,
emerging purer than before. I left behind (for compost)
death and
other sediment. What better could I do but flow in ease
and
lightness toward the source, to motherhood herself? Why
should I race
to reach a destination foreordained in any case,
when there is peace along the way?
when there is peace along the way?
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| Fort Peck Dam on the upper Missouri River in eastern Montana (Source: groucho-karl-marx.blogspot.com) |
Dreamed about my mom, who died in 1974. Woke up & wept for 2 hours, wrote this poem at 3 a.m. Is it a girl thing? Men will get the geographic element, the love of all things riparian, evoking at the same time security and sense of adventure... and the sort of homesickness, when feeling "separate," for Source... maybe the pathos of a child's yearning for his mother... but likely not the primal, biological continuity of motherhood from infancy into eternity. What do you think?
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