A dark and sad poem about the passing away of the poet’s mother, and the subsequent intensifying of the darkness that has always surrounded the poet since her birth. In order to understand the poem, you have to understand the fact that sometimes depression is described as a haunting presence that follows someone around.
The poem, each stanza followed by a prose ‘translation’.
Mother, mother, what illbred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left of my crib?
(Mother, mother, which ill-mannered Aunt or which ugly Cousin did you not invite to my christening? So that, like the spurned witch from Sleeping Beauty who cast a curse on the princess, the Aunt sent these ladies with heads like darning-eggs to stand around my crib and creepily nod their heads all the time?)
Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.
(Mother, you are the person who makes up heartening stories to tell me, like that of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear. All the black magic that has ever touched your life were the witches-shaped gingerbread that you baked. So I wonder if you ever said anything to get rid of those ladies around my crib. I wonder if you even saw those ladies with the darning-egg heads around my crib, nodding their heads around me at night, standing there mouthless, eyeless with stitched bald heads.)
In the hurricane, when father’s twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
‘Thor is angry: boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don’t care!’
But those ladies broke the panes.
(Once, during a hurricane, when the twelve windows in father’s study were bending inwards from the wind like bubbles about to burst, you fed my brother and I cookies and Ovaltine. You helped us to sing loudly together a song to wash away our fears: ‘Thor is angry: boom boom boom! Thor is angry: we don’t care!’ But all this was in vain. The windows in the study shattered anyway, because the ladies with the darning-egg heads broke them.)
When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.
(The other girls at my school danced gracefully on tiptoes for a performance, shining onstage like flashing fireflies in the nighttime, and singing a bright, uplifting song. But I couldn’t even lift a foot in my twinkle-dress. Instead, heavy-footed, I stood aside the stage, standing in the shadow cast by my Godmothers (the darning-egg ladies). Mother, you cried and cried. But the shadows just lengthened and then the lights of the performance went out.)
Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother.
(Mother, you sent me to piano lessons and praised my arabesques and trills, even though all of my teachers thought my playing was oddly wooden in spite of hours of playing scales and practicing. They thought that I was tone-deaf and unteachable. But I learnt a different kind of music anyway, from muses that you didn’t hire for me, dear mother.)
I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my travelling companions.
(I woke one day to see you, Mother, floating above me in the bluest air on a green balloon that was bright with million flowers and bluebirds that have never been found anywhere on earth. But this little planet with you in it bobbed away like a soap bubble, even as you called to me: Come here! After you left, I faced my travelling companions (the ladies with darning-egg heads)
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born,
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.
(Through day and night, beside me at my head, at my side, by my feet, my travelling companions stand vigil, still and unmoving as stone. Their faces are as blank as they were on the day that they first appeared beside me at my birth. Their shadows are long in the eternal sunset of my life, in which the sun never brightens up but never sets completely. This is the kingdom that you bore me into, Mother. But you will not see any frown or expression on me that betrays the dark company that I keep.)
'dive for dreams if the seas catch fire' 