I’m still mulling over this month’s story – thinking of the difficulties of parenting, which are really about the difficulties we have with engaging respectfully with anyone we meet. I even wrote a an essay to post on my other blog , only to realize it was a diatribe and I’d basically said it all here, so why repeat? Instead I turned to poetry, forgot the struggle with words like discipline, punishment and consequence and returned to story, which is the whole point of this exercise.
I did find out in the course of my research that Indian mothers begin to worry if their young children (boys and girls) don’t exhibit a little saitani (devilishness).
The Dirt Eater
Mother! Mummy! Mom!”
All day long, a constant
teasing litany –
complaints, tattles, whines
“He did this.” “She did that”
“No I didn’t!” “Yes you did!”
Ignorance is bliss, I think
ignore, rise above,
find my center, ground…
“Krish’s eating dirt again, Mummy.”
Damn! It’s true.
Mud dribbles from baby lips
streaking towards his chin
like old man wrinkles.
Pica they call it,
eating disorder common
in toddlers, obscurely named
from the Latin for “magpie”
though actually, the word is older.
Long time gone, before Olympus
Picus ruled – Woodpecker God/King
holy shaman, rattler, shape-shifter.
He comes to me some nights;
ancient figurehead of myth and memory;
He-Who-Haunts-My-Dreams, now
locked between closed pages,
boxed books, another life, a previous
consideration, a different vision …
Krish twists away,
impatient to escape my grasp.
Snapped from reverie,
I jerk him back
squeeze his tiny jaw until
clenched teeth release.
The stubborn pretty mouth I love to kiss
opens wide, becomes a portal, doorway
to creation. Constellations form from chaos;
dance celestial rounds then fade,
while all around, in between
and through that cosmic
firework display, new avatars
arise and melt in turn.
Awe stuck, I stare
bemused, mystified
but somehow, not surprised. I think
I’ve always known divinity
resides within each child –
each individual life
a universe –
burning stars, reeling galaxies
impossible to fathom
rich, mysterious, arcane
endlessly fascinating, curiously
accessible, infinitely
out of reach.
Mud, I think.
Alpha, omega;
question and answer
melded in paradox.
I scoop up soil
mound it in my hand
pick out a pebble,
dried leaves, a twig.
Krish licks his thumb, rolls
it in the dirt I offer, cuddles
in my lap and sucks. Tears
drip through my smile;
all around us
stand his brothers
waiting for the scold.
They’ll wait forever.
