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Constance is With Me

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  • Constance is With Me

    Introduction to the poem: I watched on TV tonight Undercover Boss, which can be quite touching. The chancellor of U. of Calif. Riverside, was working undercover, & he interacted as a guy named "Pete" with some of the students. Some talk re: losing parent to tragedy, etc. The chancellor later broke down, saying "I miss my parents." My own mother named Connie, died in 1970, at the age of 57, of cancer. This poem was written later, in about 1994:


    Blue kitchen table covered with newspaper
    Skinning and canning
    Red and yellow tomatoes.
    Acid juices running off my elbows.
    Red mounds and bushels
    Of my garden lushness.

    My mother dead these twenty years
    Comes to me,
    Enters my presence with a
    Deep abiding love.

    A tender sureness surrounds me
    As her spirit hovers.
    This is like unto
    A living prayer
    We share.
    She enters my body
    Communing...
    I think her thoughts
    Of living only for her kids.

    The tomato juice continues
    To drip and run.
    Squeezing the pieces
    Into clean quart jars.
    Slipping a wooden spoon
    Down the sides to release air.

    Constance
    is
    with
    me.

    The old graniteware canner
    Is full and on the stove.
    I hear the sounds
    Of children coming.

    My apron is sodden with
    Redness and sour smell.

    My mom then slips away.
    Saying don't bother,
    Raising those kids is
    More important.

    Don't bother.....

    ~~~~~~~~~~~
    Joan
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