Mother by Fassbinder

“Mother” by Fassbinder

Most----------Marmite------Matriarch
Of-------------On-------------Of
The-----------Toasted-------The
Hurt----------Hearth--------Home
Ever----------Eaten----------Embarassingly
Received----Rapidly-------Rampant

MOTHER


When we were all put out to sea
Arthur wossname sailed the ship
Bound for icebergs bound for the deeps
Why did he help when he was on his knees
Himself?
No word of thanks from our little faces
As he,
Undeterred
Steered us all to safety
While we played or sulked
Or sulked or hid
Like kids do. In mud
What was it to him? He wasn’t ‘blood’
But when we were big faces
That vault that housed few happy mem’ries
Started turning itself over…
Like a lone pair of socks
On a fast spin cycle
No one could ignore his efforts
His silent nurturing but loving way
Our “mother” Arthur
Long after Arthur’s final footsteps
Trudged along our difficult trajectory
We increasingly guessed about how he did it-
“…lucky loving upbringing?”
“…spare time on his hands?”
“…sympathy.”

Whatever it was
He had it in spades
And then we dug out his funeral poem
Chosen himself
And left on a shelf.

“Crossing The Bar” by Alfred Lord Tenneyson
With our worldly secular hands
We gripped the laminated verse
And like most poetry
At first
Didn’t ‘get it’

And then found Arthur there
In every living line.

We scuttled off to the library
To find Tennyson
To find Arthur…

To find Mother.





Mother

Mothers’ mother didn’t mother
So mother didn’t mother too
Mother’s mother meant nothing to mother
So why does mine matter?
I dunno …but she does.