the ocean always dreamed blue dreams

My Mother and I loved each other, but our relationship was fraught. I was Bambi and she a grizzly bear, polar opposite personalities. But we made it work. She came to understand my need to be myself, and I acknowledged her deep and abiding love for her children, even while she swiped at us with her mighty paw. They were never literal blows or mortal (though when I was a teen-ager I sometimes thought they were). I guess you could say that I grew up and so did she.

As a last and fitting tribute to her, here is a poem I wrote (for a contest on this forum) about a year ago. The title comes from the Edward Lear poem, "The Owl and the Pussycat."

On the Edge of the Sand


They were so awkward, in this mother daughter dance
One was the hard bright light of the noonday sun
And the wind and the lightening that formed the storm,
The other, the owl and the mouse on a midnight hunt, a dreamer
Who, book in hand, wondered and wandered
Through magic lands, a creature of the nightlit moon

She a raven who cawed fearful premonitions to the full moon
Who lured her love with her large dark eyes and a fearful dance
Who was born in one home, swore fealty to it, never wandered
Or wondered about the world, who left but came home to the sun
The daughter, fated to leave, to never come home, a dreamer
of dreams, yet dreamless, in the dreamtime, in the storm

Each loved the other with a fearful love, within a fearful storm
Each longed to touch, together, the silver rays of the moon
The mother never gave up on her wayward dreamer
And though she pined until she was shadow, she had the dance
She always danced with her lover, content together in the sun
While the other, fearful of the mirror that was her mother, wandered

And her mother, thoughts running this way and that, wandered
Into the land of “what if” and dwelt there long and long through storm,
Sunshine and shadow and wondered; and blinded, never saw the sun
The daughter, fearful of the storm, hid in the midnight moon,
Shut the door against the whirling dervish, and never learned to dance
Knew the contours of her midnight land, and there, a dreamer

Stayed; then one silver night a dreaming dance began, and the dreamer
Gave up the midnight land, and loved the sun and wandered
Nevermore; and the sun and the moon began a lovely dance,
Nevermore to be woebegone and caged within the storm;
Lovely, large, and luminous, she waxed and waned, but never moon
Did waver, she knew she loved the lion’s roar, knew she loved the sun

While setting, still glowing a lovely blushing rose, the sun
Still loved the moon with the passion of a dreamer
Knew she would make her way by the light of the fingernail moon;
Knew, with the fixed purpose of her heart, that she who wandered
Feared neither the importuning of her heart, the mirror, or the storm
But would stay awhile, and with her mother, dance

And so the dreamer stayed the storm
And happily wandered in her land of moon
To dance with her mother by the light of the midnight sun

Qimissung