My Mother's Right Hand
Jan. 14th, 2006 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreIt's Saturday. I do poetry readings on Saturdays. My poetry is not as surreal as the rest of my week.
This is one that I wrote about my mom. I had heard the story of her birth as a child, and as I grew older the story ticked me off. I never saw the need for them to tell my mother that the doctor called her a monster and that her father fainted the first time he saw her (true story), but knowing these things may be what made her such a tough, spunky woman.
When I was a child and I asked her what happened to her right hand, she told me that the angels were careless when they put her together as a baby in Heaven and they forgot to finish her. That sounded like a serious mistake to me and I wondered then if those particular angels got in trouble for it.
Now that I'm older, I don't think that she was an accident or that Heaven has a QC problem. I wrote this one to tell my mother's story and to take the blame off of those poor angels, who I don't think had anything to do it.
My Mother's Right Hand
God held on to my mother's right hand
and sent her to earth without it.
As she caught her first breath,
the first words to ring
into her newborn ears
were those of the attending doctor
who exclaimed in horror,
"My God,
it's a monster."
My grandfather fainted
at his first sight of her;
so they took her from his presence-
this tiny, incomplete being-
and in hushed voices
they began to lament
and mourn her birth.
God held tight to her hand
to give her strength;
she learned to ignore
the stares and taunts
about the hand
that wasn't there.
She refused to feel ashamed
of what God had made
and of the little bit
that He'd held onto
for Himself.
With God holding onto her,
she used her left hand
to grasp her dreams and desires,
to make her life remarkable
by it's breathtaking normalcy.
She grew up,
she fell in love,
she had babies
and built herself
as good and sturdy of a life
as any other woman
with two hands to build with.
I learned more about being complete,
about being well rounded
and open minded,
from this remarkable,
extraordinary,
ordinary woman
than any mother
with both hands in this world
could ever have taught me.
I never saw her hate
or turn her face away from a stranger.
I never saw her waiver
or back down
from what she knew was right.
I think that I fall short
of her example,
that in my wholeness,
I lack the completeness
that comes from having God
hold tight to one of your hands.
God watches over me,
but I rely on the two hands
that He gave me,
on my own mortal resources
to get from day to day.
Nevertheless,
I was blessed
to have a mother
with a right hand so capable
and strong
that God, Himself,
held tight to it.
-Nina Erickson
2000/2001 (c) 2006
This is one that I wrote about my mom. I had heard the story of her birth as a child, and as I grew older the story ticked me off. I never saw the need for them to tell my mother that the doctor called her a monster and that her father fainted the first time he saw her (true story), but knowing these things may be what made her such a tough, spunky woman.
When I was a child and I asked her what happened to her right hand, she told me that the angels were careless when they put her together as a baby in Heaven and they forgot to finish her. That sounded like a serious mistake to me and I wondered then if those particular angels got in trouble for it.
Now that I'm older, I don't think that she was an accident or that Heaven has a QC problem. I wrote this one to tell my mother's story and to take the blame off of those poor angels, who I don't think had anything to do it.
My Mother's Right Hand
God held on to my mother's right hand
and sent her to earth without it.
As she caught her first breath,
the first words to ring
into her newborn ears
were those of the attending doctor
who exclaimed in horror,
"My God,
it's a monster."
My grandfather fainted
at his first sight of her;
so they took her from his presence-
this tiny, incomplete being-
and in hushed voices
they began to lament
and mourn her birth.
God held tight to her hand
to give her strength;
she learned to ignore
the stares and taunts
about the hand
that wasn't there.
She refused to feel ashamed
of what God had made
and of the little bit
that He'd held onto
for Himself.
With God holding onto her,
she used her left hand
to grasp her dreams and desires,
to make her life remarkable
by it's breathtaking normalcy.
She grew up,
she fell in love,
she had babies
and built herself
as good and sturdy of a life
as any other woman
with two hands to build with.
I learned more about being complete,
about being well rounded
and open minded,
from this remarkable,
extraordinary,
ordinary woman
than any mother
with both hands in this world
could ever have taught me.
I never saw her hate
or turn her face away from a stranger.
I never saw her waiver
or back down
from what she knew was right.
I think that I fall short
of her example,
that in my wholeness,
I lack the completeness
that comes from having God
hold tight to one of your hands.
God watches over me,
but I rely on the two hands
that He gave me,
on my own mortal resources
to get from day to day.
Nevertheless,
I was blessed
to have a mother
with a right hand so capable
and strong
that God, Himself,
held tight to it.
-Nina Erickson
2000/2001 (c) 2006
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My Mother's Right Hand
Date: 2006-01-14 07:50 pm (UTC)Re: My Mother's Right Hand
Date: 2006-01-14 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-01-15 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 10:00 pm (UTC)dj
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Date: 2006-01-15 05:13 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed it.
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Date: 2006-01-14 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 05:09 am (UTC)Glad you like this one so far, though. ^_^
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Date: 2006-01-15 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 06:37 pm (UTC)It's beautiful.
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Date: 2006-01-17 06:51 pm (UTC)