Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Your mother is peeling apples
for the apple pie

and you stand watching her
and say can I have some peelings?

Sure she says
it’s probably the best part anyway

and you notice she has tears in her eyes
and wonder if the old man

has had a go at her again
like that time over the camera

and her saying jokingly
you look like some tourist

in upstate New York
and he thumped her one

and her lip bled
and you stood watching

keeping your mouth shut
but wanting to go at him

but you being too small
stood still

and as she peels the apples
you watch her hands

go over the apples
with a skill of years of experience

and you watch as the tears
run down the side of her nose

and fall like raindrops
on to her busy hands

and you focus like some artist
at the way that they land.

mother's strength
in her actions
in her darling son

Great ending lines. As always the scene----here violence, sadness, shock perhaps, definitely love---is done with the accustomed pristine skill but the last couple of lines take this poem to a different realm----this poem stands very much in the world & the daily reality but it transcends it so as well.

My friend you are the best unheralded poet that I've read----and deserve recognition----but we would probably lose you here----and that would be a big price to pay.----but I do hope you do get the recognition you deserve.

Thank you, Judih.

My swansong for 2011. Thank you so very much for reading so carefully and for your kind comments, irish. Happy New Year.