May

11

Hi Mom!

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

May 11, 2008 |

Sunday, May 11th, 2008, is Mother’s Day in the United States. The first Mother’s Day in the United States was celebrated one-hundred years ago, on May 10, 1908. In honor of the event, and in honor of mothers everywhere, here’s a poem by Kate Daniels from her book Four Testimonies.

In My Office At Bennington

Mornings, I sit by the open window
in the red barn, reading poems
and quietly thinking. Coffee idles
in a cracked blue mug, and bees burst
in and out of the unscreened window.
At last a poem seems possible
again–brain knitting scarf
of thought, purling into words.
Metaphors emerge after long seclusion–
a green crocus, crusted with dirt, thrusts
through the rotten fabric of an ailing lawn
late in February. The season is almost
over, or it’s not, in fact, begun.

But then I hear the voices of my children
returning from a meal, hiking up the hill
from camp. Or the plastic wheels of Janey’s
carriage clattering in gravel.
The cheerful firstborn’s off-key whistle,
airy through the gap in new front teeth.

and I’m paper torn in half,

the poem that didn’t work,
the wrong words, sour sounds,
ruptured rhythms, the confusion
as to what was meant, what I actually
desired besides those three small faces
raised to my open window, calling
my name over and over, Mama?

Kate Daniels teaches at Vanderbilt University. Her other books of poetry include The White Wave and The Niobe Poems.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. patty on May 12, 2008 8:18 am

    This one took my breath away. Thank you. I will share it with my mother. (And check out Kate Daniels’ books.)

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