Red River

It is sad knowing that my big man
is just that little further from me now,
yet it is as it should be,
life gives life to another life
all that blood and sinew
grooved into flesh and blood,
brain and red rivers
that run ever deep.

My sweetest one who has leapt
into the ungrace, of badly shaven face
and firm, scarred flesh,
each mark that was like a cut on me.
You try and save them from pain
but it eekes, seeps in somehow,
the pandora box opened
on a can worms and the terms
are, that, perhaps, possibly
you didn't do quite so badly.

My little big man grown
will now sow his seeds far away from me,
I'm the observer, a vicarious ghost
that reaches out but will never again
quite hold, that damp warm smell
of sweet milk and angel down,
his red river seas are guiding him
to somewhere else, someone else
and all I can do is send him
and hope, just hope for a smile,
that somewhere in that corner
of a busy life of just living
he remembers I lived and loved for him too



Poetry by Elle The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 542 times
Written on 2013-03-23 at 16:40

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Commentally Ill
i like the gore in this. had to set my dinner aside. then you graduate to depressing - wow. you had me at hello? :D

nice work!

c.i.
2013-03-25



This hits awfully close to home. No, this hits home directly. I feel a little tightness in the chest, and I sigh.
2013-03-24


NicholasG
Red River is one of your best. It underlines the sad reality of the expanding universe of family. The distances are the same whichever way we look, as the new branches climb further out of reach and the older ones fall further behind. Thank heavens there are branches on adjacent trees, growing at the same rates.
Thank you for a lovely poem.
xox Nick
2013-03-24


shells
This made the tears prickle, as a mother of two I recognise the ethos (if that's the right word) of this piece. I just loved everything about it and have the same hopes of your final few lines. I'm sure you have the confidence Elle to reap the rewards of the seeds you have sowed.
2013-03-24


countryfog
There is much that is almost paradoxical about parenting . . . how for years we keep them close so that eventually we can let them go; how we teach them and in that learn who we ourselves truly are, or more accurately, who they have helped us become; how love and faith and forgiveness are really all one thing - our hopes and dreams for who they become.

I am reminded of a few lines by William Stafford: " Is there a way to be gone and still / belong? Travel that takes you home? / Is that life? - to stand by a river and go". In a way it describes both ourselves and our children. This is a very fine and loving poem Elle.
2013-03-24



It's natural for us to want to protect our children, friends, brothers and sisters as they embark on that tempestuous red river journey. The important thing, at least I think, is for them to know that we've navigated that river before and we're always here to guide them if they get lost. And, to borrow a line from E. M. Forster's A Passage to India: 'o what a terrible river; what a wonderful river!'

William
2013-03-24


StillHoppin The PoetBay support member heart!
This poem makes me nervous as a mom.... there will come that time of letting go, of releasing my precious little one and seeing her brave the storms of life I know too well..... and there may come a day when she has a little one all her own, and knows just how much, how all-encompassing, this love is. It's a beautiful poem, but frankly, it scares the heck outta me. :D
2013-03-24


josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
I've had two take that journey and felt the loss each time but they return as stronger better people for their journey. Their relationship with me changed also to one of a peer as well as father. I like that. Well written Elle. your words brought my thoughts to the surface. Thanks,

Joe
2013-03-23


Ferenc Inigo Beck
Simply beautiful.The phrasing,the ideas,---only a woman could love like that.
2013-03-23