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Last month, a week after my mother died, I was on the couch practicing Duolingo when my entire body began to shake, my gut turned to ice, and a feeling of terror overwhelmed me. You’re having a panic attack, I thought, but why? Then it came to me: there is no one in the world anymore to take care of you. No one will ever love you the way she did. This feeling was not rational, but neither is grief or panic.
Many of my mother’s favorite Poems of the Week from this blog were scattered around her apartment –she read them online and printed them out, tucked them into drawers, stuck them on the fridge, propped them up in window frames. But the one below didn’t come from me. She must have found it somewhere and loved it and printed it out. I brought it back with me and use it as a bookmark now, a small token of the essence of my mother.
Bounty, by Robyn Sarah
Make much of something small.
The pouring-out of tea,
a drying flower’s shadow on the wall
from last week’s sad bouquet.
A fact: it isn’t summer any more.
Say that December sun
is pitiless, but crystalline
and strikes like a bell.
Say it plays colours like a glockenspiel.
It shows the dust as well,
the elemental sediment
your broom has missed,
and lights each grain of sugar spilled
upon the tabletop, beside
pistachio shells, peel of a clementine.
Slippers and morning papers on the floor,
and wafts of iron heat from rumbling rads,
can this be all? No, look — here comes the cat,
with one ear inside out.
Make much of something small.
Click here for more information about Canadian writer Robyn Sarah. Today’s poem is from A Day’s Grace, published in 2003 by The Porcupine’s Quill.
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My podcast: Words by Winter
Alison McGhee 
Oh my! Look – here comes the cat with one ear inside out. Bounty has leapt onto my favourites list and is skittering its way to the top. I look around my small space filled with bounty that might have gone unnoticed and a smile spreads across my face. I will enjoy pouring my tea even more this morning. A List of 100 is waiting to be written but I know my pen will sail past one hundred.
Thank you Alison.
*Sheilagh *
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I love this, Sheilagh! Now I’m sitting here with a smile on my face. xo
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Oh my. Beautiful poem. Beautiful photo.
During the week following my Mom’s death, I went on very long walks. Very long. I listened to a favorite songs list and got stuck on Joni Mitchell’s ‘Case of You’. I stood on the shore, looking out at a nearby lake and sang my heart out. I think I was trying to make sure my Mom knew she may be gone, but I wasn’t done with her. I’d still be on my feet. Maybe I was asking her to stay a little longer.
Your mother is just still powerful and strong and alive inside of you. As you know, grief is a roller coaster. At some point you’ll notice those powerful scary feelings have been replaced by a spirit that you’ll recognize is your Mother with you always. … from Robyn Sarah’s poem: “wafts of iron heat” made me smell the steam and cloth and feel/see my Mom ironing a blouse.
Thank you for sharing it. Be kind to yourself.
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Thank you, Robin. I agree with everything you say. And my mother LOVED to sing so maybe I’ll sing to her.
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Love this! Thanks to your Mom for another new poet – her influence is still felt.
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So true.
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