2 poems

Never Not Mother

Ten years ago, he says, I passed gas at my son’s dinner table (or perhaps out on the balcony, he seems unsure) -- but he’s certain that they had a dinner guest all the way from Australia who must have gone home with a bad impression of America’s Seniors. My daughter claims that I abandoned her to the care of her grandmother while moving house to another city (following her father no excuse); I forced her to take art lessons when she might have learned bull-fighting, asked her to set the table (a fistful of forks hurled at an antique painting) and questioned the wisdom of using public transportation while wearing a see-through blouse. It was that time of the century. Luckily, I did not know all this for a decade during which I sometimes felt acceptable, or would have, but somehow I’d lost my husband through the grate of a storm-sewer and even though I fished for him with a magnet his person carried nothing magnetic and soon disappeared into darkness. I have done all that I should not have done and not done all that I should have done and there is no health in me. When I try to speak I must balance several quarters on my tongue or lose my turn. This is somewhat discouraging. Oh, there are many of us -- on the street we pass each other furtively, pretend the store-keepers are interested in our weather, our uncertainties about small repairs or volts and wattage, the heat, the cold, local flora and fauna, when we’re actually concerned with the cracks in the sidewalk and whether stepping on them will break our mothers’ backs.

The Seige of Mafeking

When first they came to Mafeking, Mafeking, The Redcoats joyously did sing: They saw ahead a bowl of green, Forested, cool, and all serene -- The most inviting sight they’d seen. Putting away both gun and blade, They plunged with joy into that shade; The dome of blue above the place Mirrored so well its placid space They seemed each other to embrace. Seduced by thoughts of future ease They soon began to fell the trees To build a village on the hill. Its remnants demonstrate their skill -- The cemetery lies there still. The battlements, not far away, Are twisted burrows in the clay Where many a mother’s son lay down Defending honor, families, town To glorify the Royal Crown. My guide warns me against the holes Which seem the work of monstrous moles; He shows me where Lord Something died Standing erect in foolish pride, An action he does not deride. Today each village has its chief, Its history joined with its belief; The judgment seat is made of stone, A sacred place, a hallowed throne, Where wisdom rules, high and alone. Who is to say which one is right, As we walk home in deepening night? (The seige was lifted by the British, May 17, 1900. Mafeking is now the capital of Bophutatswana, a black township in South Africa.  “Mafficking about” means “to celebrate with boisterous rejoicing and hilarious behavior.”)