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.