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greatpoetryPlease - bombard me with all your favorite poems about mothers!
Here's a little something in return:
The Garden
by Dorianne Laux
We were talking about poetry.
We were talking about nuclear war.
She said she couldn’t write about it
because she couldn’t imagine it.
I said it was simple. Imagine
this doorknob is the last thing
you will see in this world.
Imagine you happen to be standing
at the door when you look down, about
to grasp the knob, your fingers
curled toward it, the doorknob old
and black with oil from being turned
so often in your hand, cranky
with rust and grease from the kitchen.
Imagine it happens this quickly, before
you have time to think of anything else;
your kids, your own life, what it will mean.
You reach for the knob and the window
flares white, though you see it only
from the corner of your eye because
you’re looking at the knob, intent
on opening the back door to the patch
of sunlight on the porch, that garden
spread below the stairs and the single
tomato you might pick for a salad .
But when the flash comes you haven’t
thought that far ahead. It is only
the simple desire to move into the sun
that possesses you. The thought
of the garden, that tomato, would have
come after you had taken the knob
in your hand, just beginning to twist it,
and when the window turns white
you are only about to touch it,
preparing to open the door.
Here's a little something in return:
The Garden
by Dorianne Laux
We were talking about poetry.
We were talking about nuclear war.
She said she couldn’t write about it
because she couldn’t imagine it.
I said it was simple. Imagine
this doorknob is the last thing
you will see in this world.
Imagine you happen to be standing
at the door when you look down, about
to grasp the knob, your fingers
curled toward it, the doorknob old
and black with oil from being turned
so often in your hand, cranky
with rust and grease from the kitchen.
Imagine it happens this quickly, before
you have time to think of anything else;
your kids, your own life, what it will mean.
You reach for the knob and the window
flares white, though you see it only
from the corner of your eye because
you’re looking at the knob, intent
on opening the back door to the patch
of sunlight on the porch, that garden
spread below the stairs and the single
tomato you might pick for a salad .
But when the flash comes you haven’t
thought that far ahead. It is only
the simple desire to move into the sun
that possesses you. The thought
of the garden, that tomato, would have
come after you had taken the knob
in your hand, just beginning to twist it,
and when the window turns white
you are only about to touch it,
preparing to open the door.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 02:38 am (UTC)To See My Mother, Sharon Olds (http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/04/17/to-see-my-mother-by-sharon-olds/)
Mother, In Love at Sixty, Susanna Styve (http://exceptindreams.livejournal.com/98285.html?style=mine)
To My Mother Waiting on 10/01/54, Teresa Carson (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20117)
For My Mother on My Birthday Many Years After Her Death, James Baker Hall (http://books.google.com/books?id=FgJ5HQqgPj4C&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=%22For+My+Mother+on+My+Birthday+Many+Years+After&source=web&ots=oMS0cVbn3-&sig=FlpML1SMDwMoAp0K355eBYXk-Sc&hl=en#PPA59,M1)
Not sure if it's what you want, but this is about motherhood: Morning Song, Plath (http://april-is.tumblr.com/post/87737280/april-18-2005-morning-song-sylvia-plath) And here's one on parents in general (http://april-is.tumblr.com/post/87071922/april-1-2005-parents-william-meredith).
no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 03:13 am (UTC)New Mother (http://community.livejournal.com/greatpoets/1809192.html), also by Sharon Olds
Fountain (http://portugal.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?cwolk_id=18869&x=1), Herberto Helder
The Iron Bridge (http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Billy-Collins/1759), Billy Collins
Hope those do the trick! :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 03:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 06:16 pm (UTC)Also, I'll add to the Sharon Olds: Looking at Them Asleep (http://community.livejournal.com/theysaid/849598.html). :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-30 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-30 02:46 pm (UTC)and i have another sharon olds:
First Thanksgiving
When she comes back, from college, I will see
the skin of her upper arms, cool,
matte, glossy. She will hug me, my old
soupy chest against her breasts,
I will smell her hair! She will sleep in this apartment,
her sleep like an untamed, good object, like a
soul in a body. She came into my life the
second great arrival, fresh
from the other world — which lay, from within him,
within me. Those nights, I fed her to sleep,
week after week, the moon rising,
and setting, and waxing — whirling, over the months,
in a steady blur, around our planet.
Now she doesn’t need love like that, she has
had it. She will walk in glowing, we will talk,
and then, when she’s fast asleep, I’ll exult
to have her in that room again,
behind that door! As a child, I caught
bees, by the wings, and held them, some seconds,
looked into their wild faces,
listened to them sing, then tossed them back
into the air — I remember the moment the
arc of my toss swerved, and they entered
the corrected curve of their departure.