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to flicker. We must be born to live it. And yet we’re scared, our fear a bandage wrapping sores too raw to touch — the knowing of madness in places of power. These wounds want air, to heal them. They must be seen, and so must photographs of scorched and melting children. We bear the power of Hiroshima destroyed one hundred thousand-fold, and yet we are such flimsy stuff as flowers, only atoms, and those smaller things, spinning in empty night. And fear. And rage. And hope. And will to love.
My sons take turns, to see the moon, close up. I take pleasure in the thinning skin of my throat — in signs of age, and softness.
Pulling tight my sweater, I want time to be the mother of three old men in warm socks on the living Earth.
- Suzanne Maxson | ||||||||
Gaian Rants | Desire
My sons set up their telescope, to see the moon, close up. We huddle under stars, and of such flimsy stuff that planets turn in space between my nerve cells.
Atoms, And smaller things I cannot call by name, because their names mean nothing to me, I am too big to be intimate with them, too small to see their meaning.
Blue Earth is of a size I can comprehend, and life here has captured my imagination. The air is such that my sons can breathe it, and live. The colors here are good in our eyes, to feed us what our souls need. Here are salty pools of liquid night, anemones and purple urchins opening. And on a night like this one, human comfort. All else — life before this life, a life called death or life in spirit — I know on faith. But life on Earth is visible and precious; it’s just begun | |||||||
Editor's Note: "Desire" was printed in Mothering Magazine 15 or more years ago. As a mother of three boys, it spoke to me deeply. I copied it and have carried it with me ever since. To me, this poem is a prayer. | ||||||||
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