strong as clay

[motherhubbard]

What do you see before you?
Am I a workhorse that tends your home,
serving meals and scrubbing surfaces until they gleam?
Maybe you see the Madonna,
babe at breast, nourish and comfort - maternal.
Or perhaps a great pillar
ready to bear more? Just cast it upon me.

A great many things stand here.
I have found my purpose,
my passion,
my strength.
I answer to many names.
I am more than I expected I would be,
but my feet are still made of clay

[PrinceMyshkin]

What do you see before you?
Am I a workhorse that tends your home,
serving meals and scrubbing surfaces until they gleam?
Maybe you see the Madonna,
babe at breast, nourish and comfort - maternal.
Or perhaps a great pillar
ready to bear more? Just cast it upon me.

A great many things stand here.
I have found my purpose,
my passion,
my strength.
I answer to many names.
I am more than I expected I would be,
but my feet are still made of clay

I thought I should read this as a feminist manifesto, but if you're using feet of clay in the way that I understand it (a weakness or flaw in a person otherwise admirable), then the poem doesn't provide me any hint as to the reason or source of her weakness?

[Debrasue]

Wow...wonderful poem, motherhubbard, and one I can totally relate to...thank you! I missed the "feminism" if there is any...it just spoke to my heart and made me feel good...but I'm easy that way...if any more was intended...wooshhhh....over my head...but that's just me!

[motherhubbard]

I thought I should read this as a feminist manifesto, but if you're using feet of clay in the way that I understand it (a weakness or flaw in a person otherwise admirable), then the poem doesn't provide me any hint as to the reason or source of her weakness?

Human weakness, Prince. I think it is almost a luxury to be able to say ‘enough! I am, after all, only human.” My personal weakness is that I am only human. And while I embrace life, sometimes I just need to be allowed some rest.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Human weakness, Prince. I think it is almost a luxury to be able to say ‘enough! I am, after all, only human.” My personal weakness is that I am only human. And while I embrace life, sometimes I just need to be allowed some rest.

I understand the distinction you are making but to refer to being human as a "weakness" is being ironic (I hope) and therefore the poem IS something of a feminist declaration, a retort to those (men mostly) who believe that women ought to be super-human...

As in that joke, how do we know that Jesus was a woman? Because he had to feed multitudes with just one fish and one loaf of bread... and because even after his death he still had to serve...

[motherhubbard]

Well, I have given this some thought (and will give it more thought). I think you are right about that. I guess I should have understood that more clearly being the one who wrote it. My life is so completely traditional that it is hard for me to affix the word feminist to myself in any way. I’ve had a trying week and this is what came out, I never give much thought to what I say. I’ve just spent more time responding to you than I spent on the poem. Maybe I would improve if I spent more than four minutes writing.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Well, I have given this some thought (and will give it more thought). I think you are right about that. I guess I should have understood that more clearly being the one who wrote it. My life is so completely traditional that it is hard for me to affix the word feminist to myself in any way. I’ve had a trying week and this is what came out, I never give much thought to what I say. I’ve just spent more time responding to you than I spent on the poem. Maybe I would improve if I spent more than four minutes writing.

For me at any rate just about any poem I write is a collaboration between my conscious and subconscious and I sometimes end up saying more or different than what I intended to say. Writing poems is a lot like conscious dreaming and at least in the first draft stage, one should allow one's subconscious to go wherever it goes... The art of writing poems is as often as not the art of reading one's poems after one has written them, to see what is there, what may need to be strengthened or heightened & what is just chaff or contrary to the over-all motif.

[motherhubbard]

Prince, thank you for the good advice. As I said before I hope to have some time after the kids are in bed to write a bit. My chickens will have to come another day. I saw something that struck me. I'll be sure to give more consideration to what struck me. Just sitting here talking about it and I already know, but I hate to admit it to myself.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Prince, thank you for the good advice. As I said before I hope to have some time after the kids are in bed to write a bit. My chickens will have to come another day. I saw something that struck me. I'll be sure to give more consideration to what struck me. Just sitting here talking about it and I already know, but I hate to admit it to myself.

Yeats: "Out of our quarrels with others, we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves, we make poetry."

[ampoule]

My life is so completely traditional that it is hard for me to affix the word feminist to myself in any way.

Exactly! And to me, your last line says it all. You are weighted down with feet of clay, with your traditional responsibilities, but you will fly someday. Trust me. Right now, your passion is your family and nurturing. Someday you will have more time to nurture yourself and show what YOU are made of.

I loved your poem, and like DebraSue, I can really relate. I loved being a wife and mother but I hid out there for a long time.

[dramasnot6]

Loved it, looks like the above comments pretty much cover my own. Wonderful metaphor.Well done!

[motherhubbard]

Exactly! And to me, your last line says it all. You are weighted down with feet of clay, with your traditional responsibilities, but you will fly someday.


Thank you, I appreciate the compliment, and your vision of the future. I meant for feet of clay to resonate a poor foundation. Does it sound weighted down more than fundamentally week?


Loved it, looks like the above comments pretty much cover my own. Wonderful metaphor.Well done!

and thank you, too.

[ampoule]

Thank you, I appreciate the compliment, and your vision of the future. I meant for feet of clay to resonate a poor foundation. Does it sound weighted down more than fundamentally week?


You must remember that each person reads from where they are in their lives. I guess I shouldn't have said 'weighted down'. It's more like keeping you grounded, because clay, and I'm thinking hardened clay, can break in a hundred pieces. I did not read weakness. There are so many images in clay.

[motherhubbard]

You must remember that each person reads from where they are in their lives. I guess I shouldn't have said 'weighted down'. It's more like keeping you grounded, because clay, and I'm thinking hardened clay, can break in a hundred pieces. I did not read weakness. There are so many images in clay.

Ampoule, I really appreciate your input. You are right, we do read from where we are. That is why I read my favorites again and again. I am often weighted down, probably more than I would admit. I just hadn't considered that when I wrote this down.

[PrinceMyshkin]

You must remember that each person reads from where they are in their lives. I guess I shouldn't have said 'weighted down'. It's more like keeping you grounded, because clay, and I'm thinking hardened clay, can break in a hundred pieces. I did not read weakness. There are so many images in clay.


'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

Unless the text directs one to read it otherwise, ma chere petite Ampoule, one must assume that a phrase such as "feet of clay" means what it most commonly means.

[motherhubbard]

one must assume that a phrase such as "feet of clay" means what it most commonly means.


it may be that the story is not as well known as I thought.

[PrinceMyshkin]

it may be that the story is not as well known as I thought.

"FEET OF CLAY -- a vulnerability; a failing or weakness. The image is from the Book of Daniel (2:31-40) (in the Bible) in which King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that Daniel describes and then interprets: 'Thou, O king, sawest, and, behold, a great image.This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.' The whole image then broke, and the pieces were carried away in the wind. Daniel's interpretation was that Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold, a king of kings, but that after him would come a series of weaker kingdoms that would finally break up, like the image with feet of clay, and be replaced by the kingdom of God." From the "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).

[motherhubbard]

well, there you go

[ampoule]

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

Unless the text directs one to read it otherwise, ma chere petite Ampoule, one must assume that a phrase such as "feet of clay" means what it most commonly means.

I guess I did not know what it most commonly means. Thank you.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I guess I did not know what it most commonly means. Thank you.


You're welcome but I'm waiting to hear which dress you decided on!

[Niamh]

I really like you poem. I wouldnt touch it! to me the ture real feel of a poem is what you put into it the moment you write it. To me editing can take the initial emotion from a poem.
I understand it as it is. Wonderful!

[PrinceMyshkin]

I really like you poem. I wouldnt touch it! to me the ture real feel of a poem is what you put into it the moment you write it. To me editing can take the initial emotion from a poem.
I understand it as it is. Wonderful!

I agree with your point of view. Between the pefectly tweaked, filigreed, work of "art" and the thing that is breathed out - in anger, in awe or in joy - I'll take the latter every time.

Do you know Wm Carlos Williams' "Danse Russe"?

[Niamh]

Do you know Wm Carlos Williams' "Danse Russe"?

no i dont.

[PrinceMyshkin]

no i dont.


Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,--
If I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt around my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely...”

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

Wm Carlos Williams

[motherhubbard]

I'll have to look for more of that! thank you for sharing

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'll have to look for more of that! thank you for sharing



The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

William Carlos Williams


And look for a new thread I'm going to start in games called "This is Just to Say"

[Granny5]

MH, what do you mean by "poor foundation"?

[motherhubbard]

nothing personal, my upbringing is a blessing to me! but even I am only human

[Pendragon]

Clay that is soft may be moulded into whatever is needed. That is my view of you, Mother H. You have the strength of iron, yet can be formed to help in anyway you need. I am more certain than ever that you are a new Emily Dickinson!

Pen

[Adolescent09]

Your poem is something Charles Dickens' Nancy would write to Bill Sykes (before she had a bullet lodged in her brain waking in the morning, LOL). Well done though.

[motherhubbard]

I am more certain than ever that you are a new Emily Dickinson!

Pen

My eight year old says you sure do know how to give good complements. I agree with her. Thank you.


Your poem is something Charles Dickens' Nancy would write to Bill Sykes (before she had a bullet lodged in her brain waking in the morning, LOL). Well done though.


Well, I hardly know how to respond to that. I’ll have to do research. It feels like a complement

[firefangled]

What do you see before you?
Am I a workhorse that tends your home,
serving meals and scrubbing surfaces until they gleam?
Maybe you see the Madonna,
babe at breast, nourish and comfort - maternal.
Or perhaps a great pillar
ready to bear more? Just cast it upon me.

A great many things stand here.
I have found my purpose,
my passion,
my strength.
I answer to many names.
I am more than I expected I would be,
but my feet are still made of clay

For me, I read the meaning of feet of clay starting with the top of that stanza, A great many things stand here. In the next five simple lines there is a life of accomplishment and strength stated from the internal growth and worldly responsibility in family and society....culminating in more than was ever expected...and yet there is still the limitation of being human and vulnerable. This vulnerability is not to be understood as weakness. Quite the contrary it is more of an Eastern concept of bend and you need not break. That is what I see written in your poem.

It is a remarkable woman or man who makes this type of stand in the world, neither hard, nor weak, but simply human and ready to carry on.

Very beautiful.

[PrinceMyshkin]

For me, I read the meaning of feet of clay starting with the top of that stanza, A great many things stand here. In the next five simple lines there is a life of accomplishment and strength stated from the internal growth and worldly responsibility in family and society....culminating in more than was ever expected...and yet there is still the limitation of being human and vulnerable. This vulnerability is not to be understood as weakness. Quite the contrary it is more of an Eastern concept of bend and you need not break. That is what I see written in your poem.

It is a remarkable woman or man who makes this type of stand in the world, neither hard, nor weak, but simply human and ready to carry on.

Very beautiful.

It will not, I hope, embarrass the women in question, but having some email connection with her, I heartily endorse your reading of the whole of thids poem and especially the woman you discern from it. I might only add that she is quite unjustifiably modest as well.