Good morning kiss. Their teeth glance. Clack of June bugs against pane. On the porch a young man
in the full sun rocking.
Jars incubate tomato plants. His mother sweeps the dirt
yard away from flowering vinca and bottle tree.
Straightens up, one-eyed by ragged hens. As her boy
ambles away to the steady pulse
in his skull.
The cattle gate
swinging open behind him.
She takes a headache powder
and it is nineteen and twenty seven.
The James overruns its levee, backs up
the Blackwater. Nineteen and twenty nine: she reads his postcard,
the tobacco crop burns. Nineteen and thirty, drought.
Long limp bags drag through fields. The Lord whistles
for the fly. Revival tents threaten a rain
of scorpions. To cure her hiccups,
the woman sees a hypnotist. Promptly
coughs herself to death. In pungs marked men ride. The son
is blown away. No one returns in this story. No one escapes.
The tribe is glued together for ruination, friends.
There is no more time, there is no way out.
This poem is like a time line and then all of a sudden she dies. Its kinda weird it just made me just think. I could sooo see this guy playing C.O.D with mr. hill for sure.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this poem I get the feeling that the mother is dependent upon her son. While on the farm together the mother and son's time appears to move slower, but as soon as he leaves the time speeds up drastically. The poem spirals downwards into a dreary tone as the mother eventually coughs herself to death. The son is not mentioned at all towards the end so it appears their relationship has faltered.
ReplyDeleteI like how the beginning is very peaceful. It makes me think of a pleasant Summer day with the sun shining. Then it slows turns to melancholy when he begins to use words like "drought" and "crop burns". It ends on an eerie note when the poet says that "no one escapes".
ReplyDeleteThis poem is just showing the fact that mothers will miss their children as they leave for different places. This young man was leaving home to go to find work. This man also writes back to his mother of the hardships that he is experiencing.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting poem. I love how it moves really quickly in terms of action, as if it's a creatively written sparknotes summery for some novel about the Great Depression.
ReplyDeletei kind of agree that this poem is like a timeline. it displays all the little things that have happened with her children that she will miss dearly about them as time moves on. she shows the things that her son has told her he is suffering through and the little things he is witnessing.
ReplyDeletehttp://colt-rane.com/animals-in-the-womb/
ReplyDeleteOne line really stood out to me in this poem. I liked the sentence "The Lord whistles
ReplyDeletefor the fly." It reminded me of the novel "The Lord of the Flies" that I just finished.
The start of this poem makes me want the summer even MORE! I feel like this poem is a flashforward through this girls life.
ReplyDeleteI like how the poem is very detail-oriented. Pretty much the entire poem is setting up a picture in the reader's mind, of the "june bugs against pane," and the "full sun," among others. The fact that the poet gives specifics allows the reader to gain a better visual, and this makes the poem that much more effective. The poem seems happy until it gets to the end, when "no one returns in this story,/ no one escapes." This one line completely alters the mood from carefree to spooky and ominous.
ReplyDeleteThis poem expresses the difficulties of parenting and letting go of their children! It happens to the best of parents though. The poem also has very good imagery in it!
ReplyDelete