(05-02-2015, 07:07 AM)just mercedes Wrote: You remembered you’d missed your early morning cuppa -- these lines immediately introduce an unsentimental, matter-of-fact woman for whom motherhood is simply something to be done
when I asked the hour I was born, to start my star chart. -- in contrast, the daughter is a little flighty, more spiritual perhaps -- there is a dissonance between the two
Child bearing and birthing came easy to you. Six kids
in eight years, tumbled together, a litter of pups.
Summers spent bottling fruit, making jams and chutney
so the kitchen cupboards filled with stained glass. -- a beautiful, practical sythesis between the daughter's artistic nature and the mother's utility
A child of the Depression throws nothing away;
plastic, paper, you never know when you’ll need it. -- explanation of the previous lines, and a good setup for those that follow
I wrote to you, through love and loss and laziness,
from other countries, and different marriages.
I found my letters in a suitcase while packing you up. -- normally we would view this as sentiment, and yet because we've already been told of the mother's reluctance to throw away anything that might be useful, it can also be seen as expediency
Now we are together again, at the other end of life,
my words don’t arrive. You don’t understand.
You’re very tired, making your own way home. -- to me, this is the only line that falls into trite and I can't really explain it, except that it just seems too pat
It could be worse