Memory of the Sunken Noon
Christian Ray Licen
Young were the days
When she held me on her lap
Seated against the wicker chair
So much to paint
that picture
When words were- but
milk-
And I am an infant- sucking
Her succulent tender breasts.
“Honey-sweet”, I reckon.
Though tastelessly lactic
they would say.
And she would nimble
To hear me say, ‘ma-ma’
And eke out a gentle smile
Pressing me to her bosom
With a cradling nocturne
Of the young evening.
And when the sun warms
The mattress,
The soaked dampen sheets,
She wouldn’t tire to change
With hands to thread the pleats.
Until the day stretches the hammock
To suspend the calloused toil
Amid the fecund bloom of noon
But the sun’s disk had shrunk.
Like a raisin wrinkled on the soil.
And where was I to find?
Just above the festered earth
Drenched by the sediments of my calling,
:”Mama! Mama!”
Words were there to mouth
The frothing curdles of milk
And the silence braced the dusk
A knot in the picture
Until time makes me remember
Where I used to paint with memory
That picture of my mother
In her full crisp, spring-bloom cheeks
Just rocking and rocking
Against the wicker chair.
.
