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This work by Mary Foster is displayed with permission from the author. |
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Mary Foster |
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Beautiful Child
Beautiful child— his mother cannot concede his death heaps fur rugs round his cradle leaves a sharp hunting stick
but the cage of bones loses its spirit, imparting traces to rock.
The mother denounces transformation, curses bereavement.
Like her, we rage against ruin, defy resignation, deny acquiescence, but in the mortal moment sense an amazing else and ask
did fishes reflect when one of their number leaped in the air and flew?
did mammals ask the grasses why they grew? or mountains how the shifting mantle pushed them skyward?
Do we only live to die in squalor, repugnant of our destiny
or does the song sing through memory’s instrument, a cadenced, carnal timpani, divulging something sacred from another dimension, a numinous disclosure? |