Sunday 10 May 2015

Love-lodestone





My love for you, my Mothers, was the stuff
of deep breaths and deep days and moving enough.
Halting words like grits on the tongue and palate;
and loose ends of your anchal mopping me up.



Nothing changes because of any distance,
the coordinates of planets or heavens;
love doesn’t depend on where I’m loving from,
your absence or presence make no difference.


The only thing that makes a difference is time.
It deepens, tightens, shifts all paradigms,
changes the points of contact open to access,
morphs the mundane; but also the sublime.


I watch children repeat the cycle, process
this loving glazed with rough ordinariness.
And it still runs deep, this seam, this love-lodestone
it changes its own course without growing less.






A very happy Mother's Day to you if you are a mother, or a child! 

And remember the A-Z top commenter's awards?  Well, I finally sorted that out, and the award goes to Hilary Melton-Butcher and Susan Brody.  Please get in touch with me at nilabose306b(AT)gmail(DOT)com with a mailing address where I can send my token of appreciation  Many thanks.





10 comments:

  1. Hi Nila - wonderful poem for Mother's Day for those who recognise it at this time of year ... I like the Anchal reference .. as too the lodestone seam ...

    Thanks so much for the award - commenting is so important especially during the A - Z ... and I enjoy getting around and visiting ... cheers Hilary

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    1. You totally deserve it, and not just for the A-Z.. agree that commenting is important, but not everyone does it with the compassion and finesse you do, Hilary. Kudos and many thanks.

      Glad you liked the poem....the mother's anchal is part of every Indian child's memories, commonly used as a metaphor in various contexts..

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  2. Lovely award to Hilary. She is amazing isn't she? Commenting was a bit of a problem this year I gather.

    I have had your poem open on my computer for several hours, reading, mulling over it. Perhaps you could do a post on analysing poetry. I teach it to my students all the time, but when it comes to modern poetry I struggle with what the author is really saying.

    You don't need to tell me what this one means. What a beautiful ode to Mothers everywhere. I especially like: 'The only thing that makes a difference is time.'

    Your mind must be a wealth of words. Thank you for sharing them so beautifully with us. (I only wish more people availed themselves of the experience you offer, but many struggle to make sense of poetry, as I've confessed).

    Denise :-)

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    1. I love reading Hilary's posts :) A-Z and non-A-Z both..

      The spamming started after the A-Z for me...but I saw some pretty large blogs with moderation on during the challenge, so it must have got really intolerable for them to have done that,,,

      Poetry is not a popular subject, there is a misconception that it has to be convoluted and abstruse and inaccessible to be any good :) that in many cases isn't true...people also tend over analyse poetry...sometimes it's just nice to say the words aloud and enjoy the sounds of the words/rhymes/rhythms...just my opinion...

      Have a great day, Denise, and thanks for being here.

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    2. Thanks so much to you both re my posts - I hadn't realised you'd had major spamming issues ... I've had a few sessions over time and occasionally one now - that bugs me .. but I just ignore them and get on - frustratingly difficult to do ..

      I've been wanting to understand poetry more, as well as literature .... I need to take some courses - sometime!

      Cheers Hilary

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    3. Yeah, that's what I normally do too..delete and ignore...but this time was a flood I couldn't ignore...deleting them was taking up absurd amounts of time :) so...Your posts are cool...they live up to your blog title.

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