Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Wind Mountain: My Brother's Ashes \ Mother


Alan: When we climbed Mt. Rattlesnake in New Hampshire to scatter Don’s ashes, it seemed we had stepped into the photo by E.A. Curtis that I wrote about in “Over Wind Mountain” (posted March 23, 2011).  And then it was over.



Wind Mountain: My Brother’s Ashes


Across the water (the water
which we all must cross)
rises Wind Mountain
above its shore: a worn, wooded
core.  It is time: water
calm, boat ready.
We will cross and, for the first
and last time, climb the steep
slope.  At the top
we will gather
and look beyond (and back,
we must not forget that);
the wind will rise up
and scatter us like dust,
like pollen (never to be here together,
gathered together in this way
ever again).



Nancy: To see, to reconcile, to come to terms with the face looking out at me from the reflection...



Mother


I’m afraid of my mother.
She hangs over my head like slow death,
nothing of my life must be known to her.

Mother –
Let me weep with you for the alien child,
the son I never was, the girl
I could not be, the failures,
lost gloves, discarded dolls –
Let me weep.

Mother?
You inhabit me.
You lie with me in the arms of my lovers.
You peer at me from shop windows.

I’m so frightened of your gray rigidity.

MOTHER!

STOP!

Stop.

Let us strip.
Like two mourners,
let us weep for the firstborn child
(she of your dreams, stillborn).
Let us bury her.
Naked by the grave
we are women,
mothers and daughters.
Mother,
we are sisters.
Give me your hand.

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