Reema

“Mary" was my mother’s mother
And my sister too.
There’s rain in the river.
There’s a river running through
To the sea around these islands,
Crying tears of sorrow and pain.
There’s rain in the river;
There’s a river in my veins.
Mary, young as we may be, you know the blood in you and me is as old as blood can be (is as old as blood can be.)

Living lines of memory drew the markings on my hands.
Ancient lines of living love are waking in this land,
Saying: “I am in the city, in the forest and the field;
I am in the bounty, come on, know me as I yield.
I am in the falcon, in the otter and the stoat;
I am in the turtle dove with nowhere left to go.
And in the moment of blind madness, as he’s pushing her away,
I am in the lover and in the ear who hears her say:
'Can we begin again? Oh baby it’s me again. I know you are so different to me but I love you just the same. I love you just the same. Love you just the same. I love you just the same.'"
Mary Ethel Ruddock, 1912 to 72,
Though we never met in flesh, now I remember you
Were warm and you were gentle; you were modest; you were kind.
A mother, wife and gran; you were a woman of your time.

Do we know your life in colour?
Do we celebrate your flame,
Remembering your offering
With a candle in your name?

Mary, young as we may be, you know the blood in you and me is as old as blood can be (is as old as blood can be).
She says:
"I am in the living;
I am in the dying too.
I am in the stillness,
Can you see me as I move?
I am in the Hawthorn, in the Apple and the Beech;
I am in the mayhem and the medicine of speech.
And in the moment of blind madness, as he’s pushing her away,
I am in the lover and in the ear who hears her say:
'Can we begin again? Oh baby it’s me again. I know you are so different to me but I love you just the same. I love you just the same. Love you just the same. I love you just the same.”
― Nick Mulvey

“I'm too much of a romantic
to share my heart so casually.
My heart's got wings and shadows
and strength and hands.

Hands that need to be offered more consistency and vulnerability.

Retracting back into my bat cave,
your friend always,
Batman.”
― Charlyne Yi

“… and the afternoon stretching on into no kind of heaven I could have understood then.”
― Edgar Kunz, Tap Out: Poems – Julia Ward Howe Award Winner: Gritty Narrative Verse on Heritage, Shame, and Class Mobility

“Loving the Hands

I could make a wardrobe
with tufts of wool
caught on thistle and bracken.

Lost - the scraps
I might have woven whole cloth.

"Come watch," the man says,
shearing sheep
with the precision of long practice,
fleece, removed all of a piece,
rolled in a neat bundle.

I've been so clumsy
with people people who've loved me.

Straddling a ewe,
the man props its head on his foot,
leans down with clippers,
each pass across the coat a caress.

His dogs, lying nearby,
tremble at every move - as I do,
loving the hands that have learned
to gentle the life beneath them.”
― Julie Suk, Lie Down with Me: New and Selected Poems