Broken Lullaby
For Zachary, from the shadow that falls behind you
A short span,
we shared an intimate world.
Mine,
the first voice you heard
in primal darkness.
I crooned
to you in comfort,
laughed
as you announced yourself
an unfamiliar flutter
like some soft-winged creature
trapped in an earth-bound cage.
A child with child
I shared my secrets with you
as though you were
an invisible playmate.
Midnight, mid-March,
I clutched reality with two strong hands
and pushed you toward first light,
saw your eyes adjust
to the gradual brutality of dawn.
Mine was the first face you saw.
I taught you warm,
I taught you milk,
I taught you flower and sky and stone.
You learned,
you grew,
you were my joy made life.
So soon I was to learn
(as mothers must)
how it is that sons are always moving
away from you
always walking
individual and strange
toward some distant hill.
Daughters came
bound to me by tides and moons and blood.
They know me
in their pulse and breath and undeniable rhythms.
Sons are different.
With what quick and sharp propriety
the cultural knife
severed the cord that bound us.
I write to say what mothers seldom dare:
that there was a loss.
That there is a hollow left
in the heart of the waking world
when sons are wrenched so soon away.
That, perhaps, sons miss also something
they can’t quite name.
Something that surfaces in dreams,
a wise old woman
come creeping across the double-helix bridge
to counsel and protect.
Listen to her closely, and you will hear my voice:
I was the pebble
dropped into the deep waters of your mind
so long ago.
See now
the circles spread out forever.
I, who was your home awhile,
I, who named you
as I wove your flesh
and knit your bones
and forged your brain,
I am writing this poem to you
from the shadow that falls behind you
in a spill of years,
moving (as sons always are) toward some far horizon.
Perhaps you will hear me
crooning to you in the old darkness
of a half-remembered dream.
I sing to you, my son, with love,
this broken lullaby,
hushed by the necessary world.
I sing to you, my son, this shattered song
across a bridge of stars.
©2009, Carla Martin-Wood, from Lilith: a collection of women’s
writes (Fortunate Childe Publications)
By Carla Martin-Wood
Twice nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Carla Martin-Wood is
the author of Flight Risk, a full-length collection of her poetry
(Fortunate Childe Publications, 2009). She has authored five
other chapbooks: Garden of Regret, Redheaded Stepchild,
and The Last Magick, (all Pudding House Chapbook Series,
2009); Feed Sack Majesty (Fortunate Childe Publications,
2009); and HerStory (Fortunate Childe Publications, 2010).
Her work also appears in three anthologies: Love Poems &
Other Messages for Bruce Springsteen (Pudding House,
2009), Casting the Nines (Pudding House, 2009), and Lilith: a
collection of women’s writes (Fortunate Childe Publications,
2009). Carla's poems have been widely published in the US,
UK, and Ireland, including Rosebud, Flutter, tinfoildresses, Elk
River Review, The Lyric, The Foliate Oak, The Linnet’s Wings,
and many other journals.
For Zachary, from the shadow that falls behind you
A short span,
we shared an intimate world.
Mine,
the first voice you heard
in primal darkness.
I crooned
to you in comfort,
laughed
as you announced yourself
an unfamiliar flutter
like some soft-winged creature
trapped in an earth-bound cage.
A child with child
I shared my secrets with you
as though you were
an invisible playmate.
Midnight, mid-March,
I clutched reality with two strong hands
and pushed you toward first light,
saw your eyes adjust
to the gradual brutality of dawn.
Mine was the first face you saw.
I taught you warm,
I taught you milk,
I taught you flower and sky and stone.
You learned,
you grew,
you were my joy made life.
So soon I was to learn
(as mothers must)
how it is that sons are always moving
away from you
always walking
individual and strange
toward some distant hill.
Daughters came
bound to me by tides and moons and blood.
They know me
in their pulse and breath and undeniable rhythms.
Sons are different.
With what quick and sharp propriety
the cultural knife
severed the cord that bound us.
I write to say what mothers seldom dare:
that there was a loss.
That there is a hollow left
in the heart of the waking world
when sons are wrenched so soon away.
That, perhaps, sons miss also something
they can’t quite name.
Something that surfaces in dreams,
a wise old woman
come creeping across the double-helix bridge
to counsel and protect.
Listen to her closely, and you will hear my voice:
I was the pebble
dropped into the deep waters of your mind
so long ago.
See now
the circles spread out forever.
I, who was your home awhile,
I, who named you
as I wove your flesh
and knit your bones
and forged your brain,
I am writing this poem to you
from the shadow that falls behind you
in a spill of years,
moving (as sons always are) toward some far horizon.
Perhaps you will hear me
crooning to you in the old darkness
of a half-remembered dream.
I sing to you, my son, with love,
this broken lullaby,
hushed by the necessary world.
I sing to you, my son, this shattered song
across a bridge of stars.
©2009, Carla Martin-Wood, from Lilith: a collection of women’s
writes (Fortunate Childe Publications)
By Carla Martin-Wood
Twice nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Carla Martin-Wood is
the author of Flight Risk, a full-length collection of her poetry
(Fortunate Childe Publications, 2009). She has authored five
other chapbooks: Garden of Regret, Redheaded Stepchild,
and The Last Magick, (all Pudding House Chapbook Series,
2009); Feed Sack Majesty (Fortunate Childe Publications,
2009); and HerStory (Fortunate Childe Publications, 2010).
Her work also appears in three anthologies: Love Poems &
Other Messages for Bruce Springsteen (Pudding House,
2009), Casting the Nines (Pudding House, 2009), and Lilith: a
collection of women’s writes (Fortunate Childe Publications,
2009). Carla's poems have been widely published in the US,
UK, and Ireland, including Rosebud, Flutter, tinfoildresses, Elk
River Review, The Lyric, The Foliate Oak, The Linnet’s Wings,
and many other journals.
