Friday, May 25, 2007

Motherless House


This song that reminds me of driving around Salt Lake back in the day, as a real-life SLC Punk.

It dovetails nicely with this poem:

Motherless House
by Carol Lynn Pearson

I live in a Motherless house
A broken home.
How it happened I cannot learn.
When I had words enough to ask
“Where is my mother?”
No one seemed to know
And no one thought it strange
That no one else knew either.
I live in a Motherless house.
They are good to me here
But I find that no kindly
Patriarchal care eases the pain.
I yearn for the day
Someone will look at me and say,
“You certainly do look like your Mother.”
I walk the rooms
Search the closets
Look for something that might
Have belonged to her—
A letter, a dress, a chair,
Would she not have left a note?
I close my eyes
And work to bring back her touch, her face.
Surely there must have been
A Motherly embrace
I can call back for comfort.
I live in a Motherless house,
Motherless and without a trace.
Who could have done this?
Who would tear an unweaned infant
From its Mother's arms
And clear the place of every souvenir?
I live in a Motherless house.
I lie awake and listen always for the word that never comes, but might.
I bury my face
In something soft as a breast.
I am a child
Crying for my mother in the night.

http://notapostate.blogspot.com/2007/03/life-in-motherless-house.html

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is a beautiful poem. So evocative, and so completely laden in emotion, it made me want to respond.

So, here's a response:

as quick and quietly
as a fool
abandons his children
he stole
through the silence
of his mind
and the death
of the stone
between his ribs

Fuss said...

This is most tender.

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