Stirring the loam

No one told me I would have
my mother's hands. Restless

as falcons at daybreak, curving
over the cracked eyelids of morning.
Freckled and angular as the granite
half exposing itself

in the cluttered forests
of home. No one told me
I would inherit
these palms, splotched
with the warmth of labor

tunneling through them
like a colony of lonely worms. Like
the pink-tubes of their yielding
bodies forming

a system of underpasses,
in cold-dark dirt. Where they
do not have eyes to see
flowers climb toward cloud,

or surpass the crushed dance
of their tightly-raveled bodies.

Author's Note

2016

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

Eilis, this short poem has some magnificent expression, it also gave me plenty of nostalgia and imagery. I saw your mother getting her fingers dirty in the soil, maybe planting bulbs or bedding in plants. I saw her busy with her household tasks. I only saw her hands and the diligent way she used them. Her tools. I was also reminded of my Grandmother's hands and her long fingers and beautiful shaped nails with their crescent moons. She was incredibly talented with a needle and thread, crochet, knitting and making paper flowers. I also remembered her pastry making and how she would work the flour. She was no gardner though. I am reminded of how in the days before all appliances became available, a woman's hands were household tools. They kept things going. Whether baking, doing laundry, making clothes, curtains, that was how things got done. Your second stanza superb. Don't abandon this poem.

Chris

[Eilis]

Thanks for your in depth response, Chris. I appreciate, especially, that you shared your personal memories. Your comment reminded me of Seamus Heaney’s poems to his two mothers living in his house when he was a child. Can’t think of the name just now, but your memories offer that same sense of comfort and safety- the beauty of work well done- in the home environment. If I can find the series I’ll come back and post the name here. I know it’s in one of my books of his, but my brain is lagging this morning.

Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this one. Going to keep working at it. Your comment is very helpful.

All the best

[Eilis]

Here’s one poem. This one actually has the feeling I was talking about. It’s a series of two poems but I’m only sharing the first one here.

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication

For Mary Heaney

I. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose’s wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith’s scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

[Chris Shaw]

Thank you so much Eilis. I will check it out. I appreciate you posting this poem.

Chris

[Eilis]

No problem, Chris. I hope you enjoy it

[CD Campbell]

There are a number of things that light me up when I read your lines. I can relate to mainly what you're saying whenever I look in the mirror and see flashes of my father. Or do and say things that have an element of him. I use to have a huge garden with 4 4 x 16 raised beds with various things. 2 8x8 raised beds with one being entirely of strawberries and the other with asparagus. 3 3x6 with lettuce blah blah blah. People would say that I got that from him, the green thumb. Yeah I know it, but did i get his passion for alcohol? Yes. To an extent. We get passed along these genes whether we like it or not. We fight them or give into them. Those are just the immediate thoughts that come to mind after reading your poem. So....

Like how you begin and end your poem with couplets. Hands like restless falcon claws! Nice! Cluttered forests tell me theres a type of chaos or confusion associated with home and the whole thing with the worms tunneling, tightly raveled, crushed, tells me that part of your inheritance is something maybe not wanted or wished for. Warmth of labor is a shining light throughout it all though. It is dark poem, but you let us know it's going down that path with the title. It seems that this maybe a work where a little bit of light is coming through the crack in the door of Eilis. If you want to change it, change it. To me it seems to be a solid work as of now.

[CD Campbell]

Or this could be just a poem about growing old.

[Eilis]

Thanks for this, CD. I relate a lot to what you have to say. And it is always nice to know how something I write might intersect with someone else’s experience.

Thanks also for your compliments on the poem’s content and format. I think a lot about format so it’s nice to know when that is noticed and that it works.

I do value your feedback. Thanks again.

[John Alexander McFadyen]

This is dark! In it I see and sense someone who feels overwhelmed by the facets of their DNA that control them and give them an identity to which they often wish they didn't relate.

[Eilis]

Hey, John. Yeah, there are definitely elements of what you say in the poem. Glad to know some of that is coming through.

Thanks for your input. I do appreciate your insightful reads.

[Robert Trakofler]

and upon your gaze your hands unfold to flower petals:)

[Robert Trakofler]

Morning Eilis:)

[Eilis]

Ah, if only. The thing becoming beautiful. Good morning, BB. Hope you have a lovely day.

[Robert Trakofler]

I see flowers in those hands don't question it i just got new fresh spectacles and see them plain as day

[Eilis]

Ha ha, thanks, BB. I can see it now, just needed to clean my specs.