Past Two A.M.

A poem for my mom. (And maybe for yours, or for you.)

Not the mother and baby in the poem. Photo by Jenna Norman on Unsplash.

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COMFORTER


Past two a.m. A nightlight rearranges
the shadows in the quiet room. A woman
sways in a low chair, her baby’s breath
hiccupping hoarse in its tiny throat
as the woman pats and rocks. Her older children
are asleep, her husband is a thousand miles away,
doing what soldiers do in peacetime. She is alone
in this room, this wakefulness, these shadows,
alone with this small being and its husking breath,
alone in her exhausted body. Past two a.m. This baby
is two months old. Croup, say the grandmothers;
asthma, says the doctor. She cannot remember
how many times this baby’s breath has thickened
and slowed, how often she has slapped the air
back into those small lungs. She cannot remember
when she has slept, since this baby was born.

She is not one to weep, not one to pray
except in church, but tonight, alone
in the shadows at past two a.m.,
she pats and rocks and listens as a prayer
wells up silent as tears in the quiet room.
I love this child. I want this child to live.
I don’t know how to stay awake much longer.

What happens next? Too gentle to alarm,
too unexpected to imagine: snugged round her
as if it were the softest quilt, a warmth,
a friendly comforting embrace, and in
the shadowed quiet a voice unspeaking,
clearly heard. The child will sleep,
and so will you. Put her to bed,
go to your own. You both will sleep,
and wake in peace, come dawn.

She does. They do. The next day comes,
the next, the child in time 
learns how to manage breath. 
Years pass, other things happen, 
my mother tells this story once
 to me, her youngest child; in years to come
I tell it over and again, to others, to myself – 
in awe of mystery so intimate, uneasy in
my lifelong roles as burden and beloved,
grateful to know my mother felt that warmth
enfold her once at least, praying its embrace
found her on other wakeful nights, past two a.m., 
found and cradled her shadow-weary self 
in rest, in comfort, in the hope of dawn.

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[You can listen to an audio recording of the poem using the little widget above the photograph. First pass; some wobbles near the end, but more passes weren’t going to smooth it out any.]

During the past year it crossed my mind more than once that, while I’d written a number of poems about my father over time, I’d written almost none about my mom. Each time the thought arose I acknowledged the truth of it, made a quiet space around it, and went on with my day. Then, a couple of months ago — nothing I can point to, to trigger it — here came three poems in a row with my mother at the center. “Comforter” is the third of those poems; it took the longest to write, and the last stanza took longer than the rest of the poem together.

My mother lived a complicated life, and she and I had a complicated relationship, and her life ended before we had the opportunity to resolve those complications together. With all that, there are shared stories and memories that are tender, funny (some of them), mysterious, and not particularly complicated at all. I’ve dwelt on the complications in hundreds of journal pages and in hours of therapy, and will surely dwell on them some more from time to time; just now, though, it feels right to lift up a tender, mysterious story and say, You know what? This is true as well. This is just as true.

Happy Mother’s Day to those who celebrate it, this coming Sunday or elsewhere on the calendar. To those who struggle with that celebration — as

Connie Schultz

says with such grace — may the day land gently.