The Life Less Solitary

A poem for mothers

What would I do
with a solitary life?

Swimming in the darkness,
so encompassing
so absolute
The emptiness of that silent life
Ringing in my ears
Pounding through my brains
Like Sunday church bells
Tolling away the long lonely hours
and days
and weeks
and months
and years
with the bitterness
the nothingness
of all my possessions in pristine and working order

What would I do
with a solitary life?

Instead
My world buzzes, hums, sings
With belly laughs
and giggles like wind chimes
Milk spilled, pooling, puddling
Curtains torn
Walls decorated in crayon
Or lipstick
Or sweet chocolate
The cinnamon air,
cookies baking
Crumbs littering floors and crevasses
tabletops and stairs
Soft patting of bare feet
fleetly fleeing across the floor
Like bees or butterflies flitting from flower to flower
Picking up and depositing pollen
Toys in a mountainous heap here and there
Like continents
And the agony, the screams
A prized toy
broken or stolen
Fixed with twist-ties, tape, glue and care,
kisses and quiet words
Busy whorls of motion
soft and warm in your lap
the new life scented hair
like feathers tickling your chin
As nursery rhymes are read
Sleep,
whisper snores in the dim nightlight glow,
at last
at last
at last
Awakening for more with the new day
Renewed

What would I do
with a solitary life?

Empty and alone
Drowning in a quiet so deep
The lonely hours
Like raindrops in a pail
Stretching through the years
How would I quiet the deafening silence
Of a world
Where no one needs me
No tears to dry
No mouths to feed
No soft whorls of life
To wrap my arms around
and hold to me so tightly
filling me with light and life
How would I pass those long endless hours
The useless ringing silence
In my big house filled with
Things
Clean
And shining
False sunlight
No crumbs or spills
No rips or breaks
No unwiped shoes piled by the doorway
The silence the silence the silence
It is lifeless brown pedals
falling
falling
falling
to the earth
Dust
scattered uselessly
by the wind

~MacBoudica