POEM
Mother and Child
We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are.
Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family.
Then back to the world, polished by soft whips.
We dream; we don’t remember.
Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body.
Machine of the mother: white city inside her.
And before that: earth and water.
Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass.
And before, cells in a great darkness.
And before that, the veiled world.
This is why you were born: to silence me.
Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn
to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.
I improvised; I never remembered.
Now it’s your turn to be driven;
you’re the one who demands to know:
Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?
Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;
it is your turn to address it, to go back asking
what am I for? What am I for?
"Mother and Child" by Louise Glück, from The Seven Ages. Copyright © 2001 by Louise Glück. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, www.harpercollins.com.
Source: The Seven Ages (The Ecco Press, 2001)
Pulitzer-Prize-winner Louise Glück (1943-) grew up on Long Island and attended Sarah . . . MORE »
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