THE MAIDEN

Rivers, Bridges and Other Cliché’s
( With Love, For Bertha )

Thirty years later
I recognize your handwriting on the envelope immediately
Even without my glasses
You write to say
You are a Grandmother . . .
An unexpected gravity shift
In my mind, you are definitely
At incongruous angles with the word

I remember you holding the tiny newborn son
Who must be this baby’s father
When my own jigsaw childhunger was still
Unsolved, raw and throbbing
Even then, it was strange to me
How he fit so seamlessly in your arms
Yet had nothing at all to do
With the bright, fluid part of you
That belonged to me

A long, long time ago
The vivid, flowing beings that we were
Unclasped hands and stepped apart
And the years poured like a rushing river between us
Through all the years of motherhood
Those years of quiet joys and sleepless nights
We echoed and mirrored, but never quite touched
Drawing the traditional paper trail of
Christmas Cards and letters
Each signed at the end
With small, regretful handwritten
Sighs

I know the tale of four grown children
Though, it seems they must belong to another someone
Someone who wears a metaphor of your face
Someone who poses in photographs with beautiful strangers
Someone who can’t really be you
You, on the other side of that wide, deep, flood
Inextricably wearing the name of
“Grandmother”


So the years disappeared underwater like slick, sudden weeds
In a flood, in a rush, in a flux, in a torrent
You are a Grandmother
I struggle with a body suffused with chronic pain
We are no longer the bright, graceful beings
We once were . . .

Here I stop
Close my eyes and smile
For it doesn’t matter . . .
It doesn’t matter . . .
At all
Time may flood and rage and flow
But memory is a bridge that is stronger than time
Built of forever; anchored firm in our hearts
The river is a symbol, an image, a cliché
I’ll tell you what is real:

~

Somewhere
Out there in time
There are two young girls
Eternally
Driving around in the middle of the night

Two heads are tipped together
Chestnut, Gold
Cradling confidence; trading trust
Somewhere a full moon shines
On the clean, clear line of their throats,
Their heads thrown back in laughter
Somewhere two voices lace the darkness
Asking deep, intent questions of life
Never pausing to listen for an answer

~

So our bodies are growing old, and our eyes are growing dim
So we go another twenty years and our hands never touch
It doesn’t matter . . .
It doesn’t matter . . .
At all

Somewhere
In the deepness of a hushed summer night
An endless summer night, rich with the smell of honeysuckle and hay
We are forever sixteen
Savoring sips of sweet stolen darkness
Dancing forever
on the edge of light


©Edwina Peterson Cross