We are the Spirit of our Mothers

I believe we inherit more than noses
and colors, more than the shapes of our
shoulders.

I believe we are passed down memories, secrets,
laughter, and joyous dispositions.

We inherit pieces of the soul
as it flakes off in the womb; we drink it.
Haven’t you seen the spirit of a mother
sparking in the eyes of her daughter?
Yet still wondrous and hungry and wild.

I believe I was chosen from a sea of one hundred
billion tiny lights, tethered up by your chord.
I was destined to be
yours.

I was destined to take on all your heartbreaks and laughter,
open up curtains, air out the insides—
hang flowers from the rafters
of a dusty wooden attic.

I was chosen to be a member in this band,
chosen to stand next to you—
live out your love, your memories,
your joy in every atom of my body.
I was chosen to breath life into your suffering,
knead them out in my own patterns.
Trip over your mistakes, again and again,
make them my own until
I learn to dance around them.

For I believe our personal journeys
are never truly personal, we are one hundred
generations deep.

New seeds
rising in the same patch.
Our work on Earth is all that we inherit.

Once reared, we are employed to pick up the hatchet
and begin our pinning in an underground forest.
A soul forest
where the old wise mother lives; we set out
to understand deeper, heal deeper.
A “woman’s intuition” is really
ancient wisdom that lives in the heart cave.
Don’t you see?
I was chosen
to live in your joy.

I was brought here to pour tears over your buried pains,
sing over their beds a holy song so they
flame up in wild flowers
just as my daughter will do for me, you see—
this band of women is ten miles deep
and I feel so damn lucky
that my light
was chosen
to be stitched up
next to yours.

~

AUTHOR: HENLEY WORTHEN

IMAGE: AUTHOR'S OWN

EDITOR: NAOMI BOSHARI