As he knelt by the grave of his mother and father
the taste of dill, or tarragon-
he could barely tell one from the other-
filled his mouth. It seemed as if he might smother.
Why should he be stricken
with grief, not for his mother and father,
but a woman slinking from the fur of a sea-otter
In Portland, Maine, or, yes, Portland, Oregon-
he could barely tell one from the other-
and why should he now savour
the tang of her, her little pickled gherkin,
as he knelt by the grave of his mother and father?
*
He looked about. He remembered her palaver
on how both earth and sky would darken-
‘You could barely tell one from the other’-
while the Monarch butterflies passed over
in their milkweed-hunger: ‘A wing-beat, some reckon,
may trigger off the mother and father
of all storms, striking your Irish Cliffs of Moher
with the force of a hurricane.’
Then: ‘Milkweed and Monarch ‘invented’ each other.’
*
He looked about. Cow’s-parsley in a samovar.
He’d mistaken his mother’s name, ‘Regan, ‘ for Anger’;
as he knelt by the grave of his mother and father
he could barely tell one from the other.
(Paul Muldoon)
More Poetry from Paul Muldoon:
Paul Muldoon Poems based on Topics: Fathers, Mothers, Name, Cows, Monarchy, Grief, Woman, Sense & Perception- Milkweed and Monarch (Paul Muldoon Poems)
- Extraordinary Rendition (Paul Muldoon Poems)
- A Dent (Paul Muldoon Poems)
- Hedgehog (Paul Muldoon Poems)
- The Birth (Paul Muldoon Poems)
- Tell (Paul Muldoon Poems)
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Based on Topics: Sense & Perception Poems, Name Poems, Woman Poems, Mothers Poems, Fathers Poems, Grief Poems, Cows Poems, Monarchy PoemsBased on Keywords: slinking, palaver, samovar, regan, moher, tarragon, wing-beat, gherkin
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