National Poetry Month
Apr. 30th, 2007 09:52 amIt's been fun. It's been swell. I can't say, however, that I will miss posting nearly every single day. I think I'm more comfortable with the couple times a week deal.
I hope that you all enjoyed.
Mother Love
Rita Dove
Who can forget the attitude of mothering?
Toss me a baby and without bothering
to blink I'll catch her, sling him on a hip.
Any woman knows the remedy for grief
is being needed: duty bugles and we'll
climb out of exhaustion every time,
bare the nipple or tuck in the sheet,
heat milk and hum at bedside until
they can dress themselves and rise, primed
for Love or Glory—those one-way mirrors
girls peer into as their fledgling heroes slip
through, storming the smoky battlefield.
So when this kind woman approached at the urging
of her bouquet of daughters,
(one for each of the world's corners,
one for each of the winds to scatter!)
and offered up her only male child for nursing
(a smattering of flesh, noisy and ordinary),
I put aside the lavish trousseau of the mourner
for the daintier comfort of pity:
I decided to save him. Each night
I laid him on the smouldering embers,
sealing his juices in slowly so he might
be cured to perfection. Oh, I know it
looked damning: at the hearth a muttering crone
bent over a baby sizzling on a spit
as neat as a Virginia ham. Poor human—
to scream like that, to make me remember.
I hope that you all enjoyed.
Mother Love
Rita Dove
Who can forget the attitude of mothering?
Toss me a baby and without bothering
to blink I'll catch her, sling him on a hip.
Any woman knows the remedy for grief
is being needed: duty bugles and we'll
climb out of exhaustion every time,
bare the nipple or tuck in the sheet,
heat milk and hum at bedside until
they can dress themselves and rise, primed
for Love or Glory—those one-way mirrors
girls peer into as their fledgling heroes slip
through, storming the smoky battlefield.
So when this kind woman approached at the urging
of her bouquet of daughters,
(one for each of the world's corners,
one for each of the winds to scatter!)
and offered up her only male child for nursing
(a smattering of flesh, noisy and ordinary),
I put aside the lavish trousseau of the mourner
for the daintier comfort of pity:
I decided to save him. Each night
I laid him on the smouldering embers,
sealing his juices in slowly so he might
be cured to perfection. Oh, I know it
looked damning: at the hearth a muttering crone
bent over a baby sizzling on a spit
as neat as a Virginia ham. Poor human—
to scream like that, to make me remember.