Big-hearted well beyond the mean,
she gave generously, impulsively.
Later, if worries niggled,
concerns over money
she dismissed them quickly.
Though she laughed easily
she seemed often to be running
from some pressing weight,
some guilt over things she should have done,
should have known.
She felt sometimes that
she had not done right by her children,
had not held them or
nursed them enough,
had not railed sufficiently
against the cool, sure faces of authority.
Others saw her goodness,
saw that she had loved well,
done the best she could
risen above her circumstances
She had proven clever, exceptional
learned to give and love
in spite of the tight, loveless corridors
trod in her own youth
Against tradition,
against all expectation and propriety
she embraced the diversity of the world,
welcomed the forbidden, dark-skinned friends,
liked bad boys,
crossed defiantly over to the wrong side of town
While small people around her closed doors,
eyes,
while they pinched their faces
at the unfamiliar,
she found herself drawn to difference,
sought mildly scandalous things,
hungered for a piece
of something larger, richer.
She resisted the ordinary
Fought bullies
Defended the vulnerable
never let on
the pain of schoolboy taunts.
She was a prankster too
How her children loved to hear of this
Bold shenanigans,
naughty stunts that
made adults laugh
in spite of themselves
When she had babies she was baffled.
Elated. Trapped. Reborn.
Her babies were beautiful (I suppose all babies are)
They gazed at her worshipfully
She was their sun, their source, their world
She cherished their smallness
Their innocent, passionate love
She could not get over their heady scent
Those early years, how they wanted her
She was at once awed and repelled by it
Not having experienced enough of herself,
of her own delicious, unlived life,
she resented their intrusion,
their all-consuming needs.
Love feelings rose and crested,
but ambivalence mingled the tides, unacknowledged.
Perhaps if there had been some small daily escape,
some space just for her,
she might have doted on them like a TV mother,
might have loved them with simple abandon,
without the complication of unsavory emotions.
But maybe love without complexity
makes for treacley children
And hers had more substance than that,
more flavor, more humor.
Like she did.
It took time, some temporal distance
from the baby years
from their unrelenting beckon,
years in which she could craft her own variegated life,
discover and quench her own yearnings
before a new kind of tenderness kindled in her.
Love had been there all along of course,
like blood
like breathing
She never ceased
fighting
aching
nurturing
holding
crying for them
But a new strain of love came later
When her children had grown
When she had come through a second chapter of her own life
Complex notes of tendernessMingling with
passion, longing
She loved these people now, these children of hers
With an intensity that only occasionally eased
It was tinged at times with foreboding
fear of loss, of death, of distance
She couldn’t explain it
How did it happen
That they, now adults, now at their most
cheeky, most opinionated,
most dismissive and careless
Should so command her love?
Her love was not effortless,
it was not without conflict.
Still
It was deep,
clarion,
unconditional love.
It swelled despite their occasional archness,
their pique and prickliness,
in spite of their tendency not to do as she advised.
She spoke of them often to others;
felt a spectacular, defensive pride about them.
She was a lioness.
They loved her too
She accepted their kisses
but she waved off their devotion,
their protestations of love
saying their ardor was not the same,
that they could not know
the depth of her feelings for them.
Perhaps it was true.
Her daughters,
having now children of their own
finally knew the rush,
the sharp, breath-quick catch
Of momma love
A feeling so powerful
It made them fierce, calculating,
perspicacious,
lovesick, gushing
All at once.
It turned them into cannibals, liable at any moment
To nibble plump thighs,
bare bums
They felt driven by a desire
Quite unlike anything they had ever known
To hold close and somehow incorporate
A creature only recently of their own flesh.
But though these feelings were shocking
Lewd, wonderful,
Though they seemed to prove her point
The fact of them also caused her daughters
to love their mother more
To understand her seemingly irrational fears
To grasp with clear comprehension
the cracked-voice and canyon sweep of emotions
attached to memories of their younger selves
Her daughters now recognized
the scathing self-judgment
over imperfect mothering
the regret of anger
the shame of too-loud yelling
the crumpling of their own babies faces
at their impulsive wordsThey dipped and struggled now
In the same shifting, salty, maternal waters
All this helped them understand her,
appreciate her more:
her momma past, her momma present,
her gifts:
the intent behind her counsel,
her enveloping arms,
her near-manic industry,
her garage sale obsessions
her emerald smile
her wiggle-butt shake
It was the way
she put aside so much of her own life
for them;
it was
the Woody melody of her laughter
They knew now, more deeply
what they had always known
which was that this rare woman
who had struggled
to parcel out space in her world
for herself and for them,
who had taught and nurtured and modeled for them,
had cuddled, caressed and played with them
that this mother was perfect
for them
was exactly who they needed,
the momma they cried for when
the demons of living menaced;
the momma they looked to
for approval,
for comparison,
even while they stubbornly eschewed the need for such a thing
She had momma mana
It could come only from her
From their momma
a legacy of love, of mercury, of giving
They could see her in themselves
could see her in their own children
pieces of this creature
carried forward in their own speech,
hearts, songs, gestures
the clearing of their throats
Their momma, they sensed,
would be with them always
immortalized in the choreography of their bodies
written into the poetry of their own flawed, beautiful lives
she, their champion, critic, mentor, savior, confidante,
would be tucked forever,kindling and warm,
in the deep glow
of their wondering,
wandering souls.
