Mother

So many places one cannot reach, my feet ache, Mother. In the ravenous dawn

you never taught me how to be tinged with ancient sorrows.

My heart your heart, my blood yours, the pool

at sunrise where you find your own face, amazed.

You woke me to the noise of the world,

gave me birth, twin

to the world’s misfortune.

So many years I couldn’t recall this night’s sobbing,

that ray of light which made you pregnant so far off, its beam uncertain

between life and death, your eyes owning the darkness.

How heavy the shadows that pass through our soles,

my smile in your arms an enigma.

Who knows how you led me through everything in innocence;

untouched, I still take the world as virginal.

Didn’t my bright laughter

set summer afire?

Deserted in this world, entirely alone, enfolded

in sad sunlight, when I bent over the world

did I know what I had left? Time ground me in its mill

until I saw myself as dust.

Oh mother, when at last I’ve grown silent

will you rejoice? My love unspoken,

some part of you bears this secret, my eyes

open wounds, staring through your pain.

Living for the sake of life, I court my own devastation

against primal love, one stone cast aside,

drying like marrow in the wind.

The orphans of this world

utterly reveal all blessings,

but who knows best

how any raised by mother’s hands

will die at last from birth.