Ariga: Poetry: A renegade mother tells all and other poems by Miriam S.

Poetry || Submissions

Three poems

By Miriam S.

A renegade mother tells all

It’s not as if they really
wanted reverie and all the grated hours
or asked for fiery green sap
served cold the day after but they
kept on growing    and I had to feed them    so I
gave them well balanced meals of moondreams
and daylongings and the first, tremulous
touch and still they were hungry    so I added
skin soft musk nights for richness    but it
wasn’t enough so I made good hot meals of fireweed
out-flaring the sunset, for relish
salt-stung wind and the delicate, dried
bones of leaves and they finished every
last crumb and wanted more    so what was I
to do I foraged in every corner and gathered all
the first light I could find    the smell of
clean clothes warming    firelight shadow    the safety
of sleep    and froze them to make them last
and served them frugally in smaller and
smaller portions till every plate was clean and still
they held them out for more    so what could I do I
gave them the very last bit of soul I called my own
and that was the end – I didn’t know
souls were finite

                           And there they are, rooted and graceful
                           tall young trees in full leaf;
                           and I watch them, in my long
                           cool dusk, hurl birdsong to the sky
                           and spoon their children
                           green sap

There were…

There were cows mooing and
lowing and swinging their huge bellies
through squishy dung, slashing
their tails against flies, beseeching me
with their liquid, resigned eyes.
And rabbits too, hundreds of tails disappearing
down burrows, my brother’s pet one
twitching its muzzle in my arms – no lover
delighted me more - a white mouse with
pink nose and tail that ran up my sleeve
and my dog, Jimmy, who didn’t fare well in
our dog-suspicious East-European household but
loved us, and stayed. And roses, wild roses
I planted in my grandmother’s vegetable
bed beside the parsley and spring onions -
oasis of care in a wilderness of garden weed
our neighbours disapproved of – and trees that
grasped me in their arms, wild flowers
flaming like the sea at sunset and frogs
and slippery frogspawn, clover to suck
the sweetness of, and grass
and clear sweet air –

    But where were the terrible
    crags, swamps, deserts –
    acid rain before it’s time?
    Why suddenly – I can’t remember

                                    only blackbirds
and starlings and wrens, chaffinches, peewits,
cuckoos and cuckoo flowers, and little
puffy clouds or crimson glorious banks
of them and when it rained the rank
rich smell of earth and dripping ferns

and then the sea - oh
yes

the sea…

Mountains

Immitos looms in shadow before me, a rind of dawn light etching her crest. Then suddenly, tosses the sun over her top and gathers her daily cargo of children and herb seekers, murmuring or raucous voiced like the slow caterpillars and darting birds inhabiting her homely slopes.

For Immitos is a domestic mountain edging close to the life of the city, partaking, almost humbly, of the human warmth below. Like a domestic animal she lies, rump raised to the sun, patched with firs, veined with random gray that breaks, surprising, to gleaming marble as astonishing as the beauty cast suddenly upon her by the evening sun.

Not for her, Lycavitos’ aloof grace, disdaining the importunate city at her feet, turning her face always where spirit and imagination cannot follow and casting her otherness, like a deep glow, on the faces of those whose hearts draw them to live where the delicate, evanescent presence erupts from the earth.

And what shall I choose?

                Days’ slow decrepitude,
                shivering night-cry to the absolute
                annihilating mere existence
                in necessary absence;
                an occasional beauty, alms only
                for hewers of wood and bearers of children?

                or abjure the rub of life on life –
                brave ridiculous matchsticks
                sputtering the unknown dark,
                beggars of their own warmth –

                to wrestle the sinewy, flamey breath
                (guardian of what gate?)
                snatch from black, and burning space
                face averted, trembling,
                the Godlike searing Laurel?

                                                Immitos (Hymmettus) is a range of hills on the southern edge of Athens. Lycavitos (Lycabettus) is a cone-shaped mountain in the centre of Athens. The accent is on the last syllable.

Born in Scotland, I now live in the Jerusalem hills and have spent most of my life involved with language as book and magazine editor, teacher of language and literature. Nowadays I intermittently write and translate poetry and run occasional poetry workshops. Contact Miriam

Today's Situation

Back to the top

If this page was useful, please consider making a donation or use Amazon links at Ariga to go to the biggest online store in the world and help keep Ariga going. Click over to the bookstore, check out Ariga's latest recommended book, or visit one of the subject areas that interest Ariga visitors: Yiddish || Middle East Affairs || Military Affairs || Religion || Hippotherapy (Horses and Feldenkrais) || Women's Issues || Pop Culture || Cooking || American Issues ||

Or click over to Amazon's Top 100 Best Sellers

Ariga Recommends:

סדנת "דיו-לוג" -- סדנה חווייתית באווירה אינטימית,מפנקת ומהנה, המציעה מפגש מרתק בין תנועה {לפי שיטת פלדנקרייז} לרכיבה על סוסים.

The People's Voice Petition for Peace for Israel and Palestine