Hawaii, 2005
I tried
to hold you high above the tide;
I tried.
Terror tasted salt and blue.
Once you were dry
and satisfied with solid ground,
I cried
for seashells lost
and the best I couldn't do.
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Thursday, August 28, 2014
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About Me
- Maude Lynn
- Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. ---Flannery O'Connor
11 comments:
As a mom, I feel these lines so strongly. It goes on as long as we live, too, kiddo.
Sherry is right ... Same goes for precious grandchildren. This is a lovely bit of poetry.
Oh, yes! As a mother of four -- even though they're grown now, I do so relate to this one!! Thank you, MZ!
A very effective poem.
Nothing cuts me to the core like the feeling that I have let one of my babies down, be they human or canine. But we can't be perfect, even though we want so badly to be, where they are concerned. She looks plenty safe in your arms, in the picture, Kelli.
I don't have children but I felt every word of this.
Beautiful! I can completely understand the sentiment your lines relay.
This so much reminds me of bodysurfing with my then 10-year-old stepdaughter in '88, how much she loved the waves until a big one caught her from behind and I couldn't get to her fast enough, ever. And though she was fine, I knew she would remain drawn to that wild surf and I could never protect her from what proved to be my own damage, her damage, the damage of that first marriage, of time etc. The poem always cries "for seashells lost / and the best I couldn't do." The poem holds so high that responsibility that is ours, or God's, or life's against death -- a duty we all fail, to our loved ones, even to ourselves. Amen.
Lovely rhyme and pic. K.
Lovely rhyme and pic. K.
If I had a reliquary for every tear that fell when my children experienced something new that terrified, mortified them or sent them reeling from the shock of failure I'd have enough to drown myself in... These rigours of child-rearing are devastating. I felt your pain in this poem, have felt that pain..
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