These are the women

Today's prompt was inspired by this beautiful poem by Eleanor Lerman that appeared on the Writers' Almanac on 8th September 2010 and which she has generously allowed us to reproduce here:

Small Talk

It is a mild day in the suburbs
Windy, a little gray. If there is
sunlight, it enters through the
kitchen window and spreads
itself, thin as a napkin, beside
the coffee cup, pie on a plate

What am I describing?
I am describing a dream
in which nobody has died

These are our mothers:
your mother and mine
It is an empty day; everyone
else is gone. Our mothers
are sitting in red chairs
that look like metal hearts
and they are smoking
Your mother is wearing
sandals and a skirt. My
mother is thinking about
dinner. The bread, the meat

Later, there will be
no reason to remember
this, so remember it
now: a safe day. Time
passes into dim history.

And we are their babies
sleeping in the folds of
the wind. Whatever our
chances, these are the
women. Such small talk
before life begins.

from The Sensual World Re-Emerges (2010)
available from Sarabande Books
and Amazon UK

I love how the detail in this poem recreates both scene and character, how the poet invites us (our mothers, we are their babies) to share this moment of reflection, a time before loss, a time before whatever is going to happen, happens.

I like how the poem expores how life is made up of 'small talk', or ordinary things: a kitchen window, pie on a plate, a cigarette, even decisions about what to make for dinner, yet this attention applied to them helps us recognize their worth, how they are the building blocks of our lives.

I am also incredibly moved by the insight in:

......... Whatever our
chances, these are the
women.

There's an acceptance in these lines I find both comforting and liberating to read. These are our mothers. Whatever comes later does not change that moment.

I look forward to reading your 'mother' poems. Here's one of mine, a haibun (a blend of prose and haiku poetry) that I didn't intend to be about my mother until I came to the end. And that surprised me.

Fast Train

When the 17.22 heads out of Victoria and begins to pick up speed I start thinking about seatbelts, or the absence of seatbelts, and how in an emergency I might be thrown onto the woman opposite, cracking my head against hers, or puncturing my face on a corner of her open hardback book. But then I notice her breasts which are packed beneath a bib of pink frills, her tiered paisley skirt rumpling in waves over plump knees, her curly hair the colour of hazelnuts, her milky skin, which takes me back to her breasts which are pendulous, generous. And I’ve forgotten about seatbelts, as I shift my knees to one side to get a view of her feet, the shoes she’s wearing which I know will make all the difference to whether she’ll scream and push me away as I fall, or cradle my face away from her book, those wonderful breasts receiving me like a tumbled duvet.

not knowing
how to hold her
my mother at eighty

First published in Frogpond Volume XXX Number 3
And in dust of summers (Red Moon Press 2008)

I'm away at the Ghent Haiku Festival in Belgium for the next 10 days so, write well, and I'll speak to you when I get back.