The Two of Us

I AM THE ARCHETYPAL MOTHER

There is a frightened little girl in me
who fights the good fight every minute
every day and cries herself to sleep
and I don’t comfort her enough,
but now I’m longing to enfold her;
so we sit and rock, the two of us,
and, oh, what simple strength
there is in that, and bliss.
And as I wrap my arms
around the child, it seems
as if the whole big wild chaotic
universe is sitting on my lap
surrounded by and drenched in
love. I am the archetypal mother,
crooning, soothing, weeping for
my children’s pain. But the Creator
takes my tears, as all are gathered
for a baptism of rain, sweet, tender,
healing rain that makes the iris
and the poppy and the peach tree
bloom in spring. So when we cry,
the child and I, our grief is not
in vain. Our sighing is a gentle wind,
and when we laugh the leaves dance
on the trees again.

by Mary Campbell, 2008

Sisterhood

 

The thing I feared the most was done, and there

was no one near, no one to carry me to somewhere I

might sleep away the pain. But when I raised my head

again− a reflex, really, not anticipating anything around

my patch of ground to stir my interest, certainly no object

worth the energy of creeping toward − I found myself

the center of a circle keeping me between the earth and

sky, defying gravity, without my straining, straining not to

disappear. I wondered fleetingly if it might be a sort of

birth, this unfamiliar fearless laxity. Oh, well. They had

of course mistaken me for someone else. But no, I couldn't

make it stick. They knew me perfectly, I was convinced, and

they had taken me in spite of it, or maybe it was why... for

pity's sake. I wasn't capable of pride nor could I then have

put a name to such a mystery of grace, such generosity of

spirit that was meant to never slip away. I hadn't the

vocabulary, till I recognized the thing I’d always known,

the fallow way you know that there are other suns and

galaxies: the ancient, great, and silent sisterhood that

gathers in its own, just as the full moon summons to itself

the tides, as I had come, as I was lifted, given wings.

There was a momentary quivering, the air around me,

sparrow on a wire, delivering the final spasms of a storm

whose center has been spent. A flash, a surge-- then even

memories of love betrayed were burned away, and what

remained was new and clean, anticipating, like an April

morning after rain. Because I could, I flew, light as a

thistle seed, for I was going home as to a mother who has

prayed, has wished, has ever waited, nearer than I knew

and patient, as the venerable oak waits for the weary to

require its shade.