ANNIVERSARY
My mother in her feathers of flame
Grows taller. Every May Thirteenth
I see her with her sister Miriam. I lift
The torn-off diary page where my brother jotted * diction of
irreverence
“Ma died today” – and there they are.
She is now as tall as Miriam.
In the perpetual Sunday Morning * comforting words of
Of everlasting, they are strolling together an afterlife
Listening to the larks
Ringing in their orbits. The work of the cosmos,
Creation and destruction of matter
And of anti-matter
Pulses and flares, shudders and fades
Like the Northern Lights in their feathers.
My mother is telling Miriam
About her life, which was mine. Her voice comes, piping,
Down a deep gorge of woodland echoes:
“This is the water-line, dark on my dress, look,
Where I dragged him from the reservoir.
And that is the horse on which I galloped
Through the brick wall
And out over the heather simply
To bring him a new pen. This is the pen
I laid on the altar. And these
Are the mass marriages of him and his brother
Where I was not once a guest.” Then suddenly
She is scattering the red coals with her fingers
To find where I had fallen * the three tragedies
in his life
For the third time. She laughs
Helplessly till she weeps. Miriam
Who died at eighteen
Is Madonna-like with pure wonder
To hear of all she missed. Now my mother
Shows her the rosary prayers of unending worry,
, Like pairs of shoes, or one dress after another * simile
“This is the sort of thing”, she is saying,
“I liked to wear best.” And: “Much of it,
You know, was simply sitting at the window
Watching the horizon. Truly
Wonderful it was, day after day,
Knowing they were somewhere. It still is.
Look.”
And they pause, on the brink
Of the starry dew. They are looking at me.
My mother, darker with her life,
Her Red Indian hair, her skin
So strangely olive and other-worldly,
Miriam now sheer flame beside her.
Their feathers throb softly, iridescent.
My mother’s face is glistening
As if she held it into the skyline wind
Looking towards me. I do this for her.
She is using me to tune finer
Her weeping love for my brother, through mine,
As if I were the shadow cast by this approach.
As when I came a mile over fields and walls
Towards her, and found her weeping for him –
Able for all that distance to think me him.
VOICE
First person narrative; the marked real life familial detail makes it clear that this is
autobiographical.
CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
Anniversary’ is a commemorative poem in which the speaker reminisces about his mother after
seeing a diary entry marking her death. The mother is now an angel “in her feathers of flame”
My mother in her feathers of flame
Grows taller. Every May Thirteenth
I see her with her sister Miriam. I lift
The torn-off diary page where my brother jotted * diction of
irreverence
“Ma died today” – and there they are.
She is now as tall as Miriam.
In the perpetual Sunday Morning * comforting words of
Of everlasting, they are strolling together an afterlife
Listening to the larks
Ringing in their orbits. The work of the cosmos,
Creation and destruction of matter
And of anti-matter
Pulses and flares, shudders and fades
Like the Northern Lights in their feathers.
My mother is telling Miriam
About her life, which was mine. Her voice comes, piping,
Down a deep gorge of woodland echoes:
“This is the water-line, dark on my dress, look,
Where I dragged him from the reservoir.
And that is the horse on which I galloped
Through the brick wall
And out over the heather simply
To bring him a new pen. This is the pen
I laid on the altar. And these
Are the mass marriages of him and his brother
Where I was not once a guest.” Then suddenly
She is scattering the red coals with her fingers
To find where I had fallen * the three tragedies
in his life
For the third time. She laughs
Helplessly till she weeps. Miriam
Who died at eighteen
Is Madonna-like with pure wonder
To hear of all she missed. Now my mother
Shows her the rosary prayers of unending worry,
, Like pairs of shoes, or one dress after another * simile
“This is the sort of thing”, she is saying,
“I liked to wear best.” And: “Much of it,
You know, was simply sitting at the window
Watching the horizon. Truly
Wonderful it was, day after day,
Knowing they were somewhere. It still is.
Look.”
And they pause, on the brink
Of the starry dew. They are looking at me.
My mother, darker with her life,
Her Red Indian hair, her skin
So strangely olive and other-worldly,
Miriam now sheer flame beside her.
Their feathers throb softly, iridescent.
My mother’s face is glistening
As if she held it into the skyline wind
Looking towards me. I do this for her.
She is using me to tune finer
Her weeping love for my brother, through mine,
As if I were the shadow cast by this approach.
As when I came a mile over fields and walls
Towards her, and found her weeping for him –
Able for all that distance to think me him.
VOICE
First person narrative; the marked real life familial detail makes it clear that this is
autobiographical.
CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
Anniversary’ is a commemorative poem in which the speaker reminisces about his mother after
seeing a diary entry marking her death. The mother is now an angel “in her feathers of flame”
