Sometimes emotions are vast. I do not think our culture deals with grief very easily. Grief then becomes a vast pit, stuffed inside us. I sent the Falling Angels poems to friends and family. One older friend said that the poems were too sad and was I that sad all the time?
I replied, no, I am not sad all the time. The sadness is in the poems because there are very few people that I know that are comfortable with sadness and grief. So I put it in to poetry, because I do not want to stuff it. We need to let grief come out and let the tears flow and let it go.
The first poem in this trilogy was written in 1984. The next two were written twenty years later. Like ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail.
The first poem popped into my head while I was thinking about flowers. The second two were both problem poems. Most of my poems are problem poems: I sit down with a problem that I am working on and start writing about it. I do not know where the poem is going to go and I am always surprised. And it often goes somewhere that I don’t expect. Often it is a map for where I aspire to go emotionally, but usually I am not there yet when I finish the poem.
This poem is about a dream that helped me after my mother died and through a divorce. It was not an easy process, to look at my childhood and what happened. It can be a very frightening place to go. Good luck and health to everyone who tries.
It’s not the tearing sound of fabric A small rip And now a tear That I feel
It’s the torch
I’ve been here before A job where the idealistic came As moths to the flame Self-immolation Because they had ideals
I watched and burned and rose
It’s the torch The flames that rise As the witch is burned Tilts back her head In ecstasy and knowledge Eager to learn what she can From these burning brands
In the burning we learn In pain we learn If we can remain open Ashes fall to the ground Buckets of water Wash any remains to grey mud Gone, punished Relief for the frightened An example has been set
No but what stirs at night Moon or none What rises from the mud The ashes Takes form Takes flight Laughing
Set a torch to me Why don’t you? And see what is created
I am growing My shell hurts It hurts it hurts! I cannot shed it I try and try and try I fight I seek allies and help I fight One year, two years, nearly three
I’m free My shell suddenly releases and slides off I can feel my soft body expand To my real size Bigger Joy!
Oh! They’re attacking! Why why! My brothers! My sisters! No! Your claws hurt! They are cutting me Ow ow stop why!
I run Scuttle sideways Soft and clumsy Hide In the mud
Why why? Oh, my wounds ache Stabbed By multiple claws Deepest pain In my heart At this betrayal.
I hide I sit I think
It was so hard To shed my shell Why would they attack?
Oh! Their shells hurt too! Their words They were grabbing me To try to see how I’d shed my shell They were desperate Oh they must be in such pain!
Can I forgive them? Do they know not what they do?
I hide I sit I think I heal
My shell is strong now I am bigger
I will go forth And see who is trying to shed their shell I will try to protect the newly molted.
It seems to be one of my irritable days They come rolling round in the month of May I don’t feel friendly and don’t want to play It seems to be one of my irritable days
It seems to be one of those days when I’m mad At nothing particular. I feel really bad I hate those damn tourists who always wear plaid I really intensely dislike feeling sad
I haven’t felt quite this bad since last year But I’m not one to cry. I don’t like weak tears I’m not one to let myself feel any fears I haven’t felt this bad for almost a year
It seems to be one of those days when I’m mad I think I’ll go pick a nice fight with that lad He looks too damn happy and just too damn glad When I’m punching his lights out I won’t feel so sad
It seems to be one of my irritable days Going to work on them just doesn’t pay My boss’s revenge just goes on for days Today it’s so bad that I can’t even pray
Helen Burling Ottaway, my mother, died May 15, 2000. I wrote this poem in the early 2000s. Her birthday was May 31, right near Memorial Day. Mother’s Day always falls near her death.
I am putting up a series of poems that I titled Falling angels, after a dream, where all the stars in the sky started falling. I was frightened and then realized that they were all angels. Then I was more frightened.
I think we need poetry and dreams and angels during this difficult time. Even if the angels are all falling.
I took the photograph of my mother. A friend loaned me his 35mm camera and I took one roll of pictures and gave the camera back to him. Almost all of the photographs I took were portraits.
You were an artist You are an artist You said that you’d have to live to 120 to finish all your projects And died at 61 I keep wondering what the art supplies are like and if you work on sunsets or mountains or lakes
Trey, 9 made a clay fish last summer that I admire He said grumpily “It’s too bad Grandma Helen died before I could do clay with her.” He tells me he’s ready to make raku pots to fire in your ashes as you wished I ask what he’d make He considers and says, “What was Grandma Helen’s favorite food?” I can’t think and say that she liked lots of foods At the same time wondering squeamishly if maybe he should make a vase and then being surprised that I am squeamish and thinking of blood and wine, too, I wonder if my dad would know. “Maybe guacamole.” I need to find a potter to apprentice him to.
Camille, 4. asks how old Grandma Helen was when she died. I explain that she died at 61 but her mother died at 92. Camille asks how old I am. 40. When are you going to die? I say I don’t know, none of us do, but I hope it’s more towards 90.
Camille studies me and is satisfied for now. She goes off. I think of you.
I perpetuate the Christmas cards you did with us upon my children. They each draw a card. We photocopy them and hand paint with watercolors. Camille wants to draw an angel and says she can’t. I draw a simple angel and have her trace it. She has your fierce concentration bent over tracing through the thick paper She wants it right. The angel is transformed.
My kids resist the painting after a few cards as I did too. Each time I paint the angel to send to someone I love I think of Camille and you and genes and Heaven I see you everywhere
January 19, 2002
published in Mama Stew: An Anthology: Reflections and Observations on Mothering, edited by Elisabeth Rotchford Haight and Sylvia Platt c. 2002
Discover and re-discover Mexico’s cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - Flüchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflüchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
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