Andrea Gale Goodman

GROUND GIVES WAY
for Rose, August 24, 2009

I’m looking out my window—
mass of yellow flowers,
late summer blooms that
carry into autumn:
school-starting time
for all my childhood
and all yours.

This year, you’re leaving—
leaving childhood
leaving this house
leaving me.
Perhaps I’ve been clumsy
but it was my best I gave you
and somehow good enough
that you are ready to go,
ready to begin your life
without me, our house, the rock of Maine
under you.

If the house, even after 200-odd years,
were to fall down and blow away,
the rock that supports it would still be rock.
If we were to abandon
this solid, cozy house,
sell it, move away,
it would still be a house
though not quite the same
without your artwork or my piano,
curtains I sewed for the kitchen
twenty years ago,
or the sounds of our feet and voices.
It would miss us,
yet still be a house,
happy to shelter another family.
What am I
when you lift off?
I don’t sense the gravity
to hold my form steady.
Without the daily bearing of you
I can’t say
I am here.

You have no idea
how I treasure
your rare smiles,
the honey color of your hair,
the luminosity of your skin.
The mother-heart bursts
impossibly
for a gesture, a word!

And maybe it’s best you don’t know
Or how could you move freely?
Ah, that’s why you hide—
always out or behind a door—
you do know and can’t move,
knowing I am feeling every
nuance and ripple
from my place under your footsteps.

Just consider that when we began,
I carried you
inside me,
and then always in my arms
close to my heart,
and then in my lap
if I sat down!
I learned to be available
whenever possible.
Yes, it was long ago,
but then remember
when Daddy moved out
leaving just me here with you,
I used all my forces
and many beyond me
to give you solid ground
and space to grow,
and how to balance
solid with spacious?
Groping blindly, listening hard,
as you pushed
to separate.

I don’t expect you to imagine your mother.
Or to think of me
at a time like this.
Who thinks of what the Earth feels
as we walk and travel,
meet and part?
Do we ever imagine
how much She is loving
each creature
drawing sustenance
from her breast?
Perhaps our rare gratitude
is to her as for me
your smile.

I bless your going,
Precious Daughter,
and trust you know
I will always
eternally be
here.

-Andrea Gale Goodman