a poem for mother....

Raw Season

Through corridors of days,

they stretch molassas slow

over years,

I have shuffled.

I have been reluctant,

though willing.

terrified,

yet Viking-brave.

I have been silent,

though I have always felt my voice.

Scattered and precise events,

articulations and devotions,

have manifested

beautifully and violently sharp,

so like the contrasts and soft angles

that lurched from the cinema screens of my youth.

I have grown in many ways,

a thirsty vine,

inevitably up and down,

forward and back,

and out from my mothers' papoose.

He tells me

he has given me a gift:

a gratitude

a treasure

a release.

I am tumble-down scarred

and bleeding still.

There is a new discovery here,

a seething from under my skin.

I acknowledge the chrysalis

and still

I mourn the wilting of last years' rose.

I am one woman.

Entirely here.

Altogether alive-

and reaching.

MSA-September 2004

---alla mia madre, la forza della mia luce e speranza.