Mother

I     Your love was like moonlight     turning harsh things to beauty,     so that little wry souls     reflecting each other obliquely     as in cracked mirrors...     beheld in your luminous spirit     their own reflection,     transfigured as in a shining stream,     and loved you for what they are not.     You are less an image in my mind     than a luster     I see you in gleams     pale as star-light on a gray wall...     evanescent as the reflection of a white swan     shimmering in broken water.     II     (To E. S.)     You inevitable,     Unwieldy with enormous births,     Lying on your back, eyes open, sucking down stars,     Or you kissing and picking over fresh deaths...     Filth... worms... flowers...     Green and succulent pods...     Tremulous gestation     Of dark water germinal with lilies...     All in you from the beginning...     Nothing buried or thrown away...     Only the moon like a white sheet     Spread over the dead you carry.     III     (To H.)     Speeding gull     Passing under a cloud     Caught on his white back     You... drop of crystal rain.     Now you gleam softly triumphant     Folding immensities of light.     IV     (To O. F. T.)     You have always gotten up after blows     And smiled... and shaken off the dust...     Only you could not shake the darkness     From off the bruised brown of your eyes.     V     (To E. A. R.)     Centuries shall not deflect     nor many suns     absorb your stream,     flowing immune and cold     between the banks of snow.     Nor any wind     carry the dust of cities     to your high waters     that arise out of the peaks     and return again into the mountain     and never descend.