wetland

august 18, 2007

Picture children on the seashore.
Pampered, overprotected, they play in their mother's hair.
She gives them everything they need.
Even in their foolishness, they love her,
making her gifts as they know how.
She lets them, patiently.
They hang her neck with gaudy silver beads,
decorate her hair with metal spangles, Snow White combs
that weigh down her green tresses.
She smiles a little sadly, and says nothing.

Near the end (they didn't know it was the end yet),
they gave her morphine to stop her crying.
It only clogged her tear ducts,
did nothing for the pain,
so they put in a shunt.
Tears ran between clean metal, concrete siding,
all the way down.

We are standing in the tall grass of the marsh,
salty with the waters of her living tears,
wondering
what self-satisfied chemist thought styrofoam was a good idea.
Here where no one watches,
we see porpoises and butterflies side by side.
Pelicans fly over rabbit-filled wildflowers.
Repentant, we croon inadequate comfort
as we brush out our mother's long green hair,
teasing out the poisoned jewelry of childhood folly.
Combing her eyelashes, we realize too late:
she makes her own jewelry.
Even her eyelashes are full of life and death,
tiny crabs, flowers, dragonflies.

She heals herself, knitting vines together,
letting her children break toxins into colored shards.
She tries, fails, tries again,
weaker than we remember her.
Like children betrayed, we listen to her whispered stories,
certain:
our own offspring will learn better.
They will not repeat our mistakes.
And when our own time comes, we
will not die alone.