Medbh McGuckian
The Hodegetria
Our moon reflects, having no other choice,
The calm insignificance of the sea.
We won’t find a soul by cutting deep
From the response of the day
Or the red ink parts of the Gospel.
A woman at one with her sari
Knows by instinct how to place it;
Her sari is a fellow-actor, constantly
On stage. Why do we wear
Such static, stitched clothing?
Already we are withdrawing
From the comfortable idea, of women
Who mend roads. Her two shoulders
Are touched by the garment
In different ways:
The right side of her waist is hot
From the pleats, her ankles
Always feel slightly crowded,
Their movement made heavier
By the fall.
It functions usefully
As a kind of third hand
For lifting vessels,cleaning, wiping,
Gathering, protecting the face
Like a fan in summer.
It gets jammed in a car door,
Flies in your eyes or slips off your head,
You bite it between your teet
Or in your fist, you pat your lips with it,
Dab with it at your tears.
You may tie the string so tightly
As to harm an unborn baby-
When breast feeding, it is a cradle,
A cloth for the baby’s cheek.
He plays hide and seek with it,
Sliding and showing his face.
When he sleeps he pulls it
Twisted around his thumb
Into his mouth- if you
Disengage it, he screams.
When we lie next each other,
I wind it round me pretending I’m not there.
He learned to walk clinging
Not to my finger but my sari.
Even after forty years
You never really feel command
Of its rich lather, stunningly radiant
Cloud. To tame and inhabit
Its fearsome flood of fabric
Is to be a person given the gift
Of decay. The forms of pouring
What I must have ceased to be
Are the unsure position of the folds
On the sari of an elderly woman
And its wilted pastels.
__________
Medbh McGuckian is working at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast as a Creative Writer. A new Selected volume is being prepared by Wake Forest Press, North Carolina. Her latest collection was The High Caul Cap by Gallery Press, co. Meath. The American edition will appear shortly.
The Hodegetria
Our moon reflects, having no other choice,
The calm insignificance of the sea.
We won’t find a soul by cutting deep
From the response of the day
Or the red ink parts of the Gospel.
A woman at one with her sari
Knows by instinct how to place it;
Her sari is a fellow-actor, constantly
On stage. Why do we wear
Such static, stitched clothing?
Already we are withdrawing
From the comfortable idea, of women
Who mend roads. Her two shoulders
Are touched by the garment
In different ways:
The right side of her waist is hot
From the pleats, her ankles
Always feel slightly crowded,
Their movement made heavier
By the fall.
It functions usefully
As a kind of third hand
For lifting vessels,cleaning, wiping,
Gathering, protecting the face
Like a fan in summer.
It gets jammed in a car door,
Flies in your eyes or slips off your head,
You bite it between your teet
Or in your fist, you pat your lips with it,
Dab with it at your tears.
You may tie the string so tightly
As to harm an unborn baby-
When breast feeding, it is a cradle,
A cloth for the baby’s cheek.
He plays hide and seek with it,
Sliding and showing his face.
When he sleeps he pulls it
Twisted around his thumb
Into his mouth- if you
Disengage it, he screams.
When we lie next each other,
I wind it round me pretending I’m not there.
He learned to walk clinging
Not to my finger but my sari.
Even after forty years
You never really feel command
Of its rich lather, stunningly radiant
Cloud. To tame and inhabit
Its fearsome flood of fabric
Is to be a person given the gift
Of decay. The forms of pouring
What I must have ceased to be
Are the unsure position of the folds
On the sari of an elderly woman
And its wilted pastels.
__________
Medbh McGuckian is working at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast as a Creative Writer. A new Selected volume is being prepared by Wake Forest Press, North Carolina. Her latest collection was The High Caul Cap by Gallery Press, co. Meath. The American edition will appear shortly.