melissaahowells

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The Petty Player Who Rarely Sleeps

I'd Like A Taste (The Wolf Said)

The Crow Is A Black Bird

When I Start to Bloom

I'd Like To Be Your Shirt (when you wake up in the morning)



All Beings Considered

Words Between Edward And Jane

Nothing's Sadder Than A Rose

The Great Tsunami Of Our Growing Grief written 3/2.2021--retitled 3/14/2021

After Wide Sargasso Sea ( For Those of You Readers Who Have Empathy For the First Mrs. Rochester.)

WAITING ON THE WORLD (March/February 2021 poetry)

Wild and Unraveling

What Must Be

These Hands Exist July 4 2023 rei-edited 7/12/2023

I Am The Color Of Black

The Tide of Your Lies (2019-2023)

How I Wanted Your Pearls 6/24/2023 WRITTEN DIRECTLY TO THE PAGE

Love Wants What Love Wants re-edited 5/31/023

Winter's Been Too Long.... 4/18/2023 (LONGING)

The Dreaming Life ( A Series Of Dream Vignettes)

Like A Small Street Dog Lured In By The Promise Of Meat

This Is What Mermaids Dream Of

At Night, As I Dream of Vampires Who Have No Bad Intentions

And You Will Be Called Ashes As You Leave ( from a dream)

Certainly No Bread 3/16/2022

Someone Send Out A Search Party

THE FAN , AT NIGHT, GIVES GOOD ADVICE completely re-edited, an entirely different poem

What Is The Price For Your Touch? re-editied 5/31/2023

Where Is My Bed With The Pleasing Tree -Lined View(NOW REEDITED)

Oh What Fine Physics (Before Me ,Lies) re-edtited @4/17/2023

If Prejudice Were Dumb And Could Not Speak

THE COMPANY THAT WE KEEP WITH THE ONE WITHIN

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the Mother I am and am not


I'm no Mother,
but I've been described
as maternal.
I have birthing hips,
but no child has ever sprung
from them.

I wonder where this characterization comes from.
They say if you answer you hate your Mother on the
MMPI the entire test becomes invalidated.
I wonder what fool ever drew up
that conclusion?

Certainly no one who had my Mother.

I loved her and I hated her equally at times.
It wasn't her, my therapist said, but her behavior.
You make the distinction after this poem,
I  would say to that therapist.
And why in the hell am I in therapy anyway?
I would not have been there if it were not
for my Mother.

Someone has said at one time or another
to many women:

"You're not a woman until
you've experienced childbirth."

My Mother would've had a differing opinion
on that. Me??
Yes, I would have a differing opinion, as well.

Oh, but
I've birthed other things,
other passions,
stories, words,
in that way,
my way, a Mothering way.

Assuredly,
I am
a Madonna and
a woman.

My Mother was a woman, but a Madonna,
that is stretching it. Maybe, I am stretching
things too, for poetry's sake.

Madonnas cherish the earth,
all creatures,
the sky and water.

I have loved all of these things
fiercely,
including
myself. I learned the earth appreciation
stuff from my Mother.

But I've also learned
to love
with forgiveness
and a forgetting mind
a skill I mothered within
myself
(and must continually relearn to practice)
very slowly with other teachers,
other mothers
over time.

I wonder if my own Mother simply pretended
at this skill?

I am Motherless, now.

Sometimes, I've
suffered as all motherless children do...
who must learn
the skill of
self-rocking,
self-soothing.

I believe for my whole life that
I am a human rocking chair.
I am certain
my Mother never rocked me, though my Father did once
in a hospital ward when I was almost five.

Today,
I remember my Mother,
flawed as she was.
I'm thankful
for her lessons.
Ones of love,
of color, creativity, music,
of small things and nature.
And of the one
that is hardest of all...
that you are lost if you do not learn to
love yourself.

My Mother was always lost.
She was a desperate kitten crying in the rain
hoping to be let in.

Even so, tonight,
I'm hopeful that
she will whisper
gently into my right ear
as I dream.

May this be,
every night.

May she feel more like a Mother,
more loved than she ever understood
in her entire abbreviated life.
 
Greeting her,
I will hug her
with the whole of my heart.




Copyright May 11, 2014 All Rights Reserved By This Author
All Poetry/Stories/Prose is the legal property of this Author
Meloo/Melissa A Howells  site: Tilt-a-World







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