ElementalMom

Another fantastic poem came my way today. So here you go:

Grandmothers

Let me tell you about your grandmother
(No, not your mother’s mother, living in Houston)
I’m talking about Grandmothers.
The ones who survived the years of
twilight sleep and childbed fever
The ones who endured famine, poverty, war and witch hunts
The Grandmothers nobody could kill
because they live in the marrow of your bones,
endlessly renewed with the passing moon.
You’ll hear them someday
Maybe it will be when you sink down deep
below the pain
and move with your body
as it births your baby.
Maybe.
“She makes it look so easy,” they’ll say
“Like having kittens”
But you’ll know
It was your Grandmothers telling you what to do.
Or maybe it will be hard for you
so hard your husband leaves
and curses and cries in the hallway
unable to see you go on
while the anesthesiologist hovers by your shoulder
But one person never gives up on you
Your Grandmother.
You can almost hear her now
moving you, almost
guiding you
And I have to tell you something about your Grandmother
(Maybe she is a little like the one in Houston)
Once you get her talking,
She’s never (I mean never)
Going to shut up.

By Christina Wadsworth

Auntie Ellen just pointed me to this verse, by Philip Larkin.

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

–Philip Larkin