The Mother’s Trilogy Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

The bony figure you have seen on your Ti-Vi screens,
on the tree, arresting tightly its branch to stand safe,
that one, who pets one peculiar ball tied on her body
is the mother of Africa; that ball is her very infant.
Ιs waiting the harivdes of the flood tide to die out
the soil to dry; then she will count losses, will sow
the land from the scratch, as far as the eye can see.

***

That little angel coming from the school, rushing
to enter into her arms, to kiss and caress her
so softly, telling her “I love you”, is the kid of Lucia;
when pregnant thought of abort him, as embryon,
when thunderstorms of bad times hit her heavily.
But now she sheds tears of joy when he kisses her,
trembles that if she loses this divine gift she’ll be lost.

***

In Spitac, down in a basement ruined by the earthquake,
skinny half-dressed, she covers the infant with her hair,
coiled, chasing away the mice and the bats. Night and day
dreams salutary men coming to break the trap of cement.
Her breath is merely half! Tears her fingers with her teeth,
strains her blood to offer it as life to her kid, holy communion,
before the rescuers or angels come to take it safe from her.

When the quake strikes, artesian water and manna arises
but only from the inner depths of the Mother’s heart.



© JosephJosephides