Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

 

Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes.

“My Mother’s Hands” by Kristina Hayes

On By Christina's WordsIn Music, Poetry
How you have spun whole worlds for
me between your fingers, cupped palms.
How you fed me, clothed me, taught me
the shape of trees and bodies and how
to brush my hair without hurting myself,
how I breathe only because you allowed
me to grow in your womb. Thank you for
the bed in your belly, mom. I am sorry for
the pale white scar on your abdomen,
for how I refused to let go, so they forced
you to let go of me first. I am sorry, too,
that I am not going to school to be a doctor
or a lawyer or some kind of engineer, but
your support is like the sun. Crucial. So
this is for your hands, those star-shaped
things that extend outward from your wrists,
that held me, that carried me, that love me.
You said I left scars on your hands, the
good kind that remind you of how things
were. When you open them and hold them
up to the light, I can see the faint outline
of a smaller heart in your palms. You smile,
close your fists. Tell me to never love
anyone without seeing their hands first.

“Explaining the Plot of Blade Runner to My Mother Who Has Alzheimer’s” by C J Allen

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Rutger Hauer, in Blade Runner

Los Angeles, November 2019.

‘Who is that man?’ she asks. ‘A replicant,
a robot,’ I reply. ‘It’s science fiction.’
‘I’ll bet it is,’ she says. ‘You do know that
your father’s in the garage? No-one’s called
to take away the bath-seat.’ ‘I know,’ I say,
although I know these things aren’t true. I’m sitting
in my father’s armchair, an interloping god,
a replicant, of sorts. ‘Some days,’ she says,
‘I curl up like the rug and sleep. Have they
come back to earth because they want more life?
Is that it?’ ‘That is it,’ I say, ‘exactly.’
‘Your father hated storms.’ ‘I know,’ I say.
I know this to be true. And in the future,
in Los Angeles, it’s raining fit to fill
a wire basket. ‘I knew your mother.’ ‘Do you
mean — I think you mean — your mother? Lou?’
‘I do. The rain,’ she says, ‘look at the rain.’

~ C J Allen

“On Reading a Poem by Phillis Levin” by Marilyn Robertson

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I laughed out loud this morning.
I was reading a poem called The Buzzard
and it took me through ice storms,
evacuation routes, terrible winds—
an ominous landscape.
But where is the buzzard, I wondered,
and how is he going to navigate
toward breakfast in this gale?
I got to the end where a neighbor’s shovel
scraping the walk made you reconsider
the meaning of your life,
and still no bird had shown up.
Not even a canary.
Did I miss something?
I turned back the page to read it again
and saw it was called The Blizzard.
How interesting life can be
when you mistake one thing for another.

 

~ Marilyn Robertson via Rattle #23, Summer 2005 

“lana del rey intervenes when she notices i’ve stopped writing about my ex” by Megan Falley

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It’s good that he’s gone,
but don’t let him be too gone.
He’s got to be candle blown out
in the other room gone.
Or exhaust pipe
huffing down the block gone.
Not closure-gone. Not someone-else’s-
baby-gone. Not cut your hair gone.
He can’t ever be too far
away to hurt you, honey.
You can pedal away but make sure it’s a polaroid
of him clicking in your bicycle wheel down the boulevard.
Put a suitcase in a trunk and every state in between you
if you want, but when you turn on the radio,
search for his song.
Don’t get me wrong, you can love.
You can bend over
a pinball machine for a biker,
or a balcony for a photographer.
You can bend over a bridge
for a poet, but when you’re in a strange city
at a lonely hotel bar and they ask
what you’re drinking,
say his name.

—Megan Falley, via Rattle #46, Winter 2014