you want the womb, and a mother, any mother, someone's mother, to sing you to sleep

Book of Dahlia:
She wanted the intactness back, and the family, and the womb, and the womb before the womb, and her mother, but not her actual mother. She would have been okay, truly. She would have! She really would have. After she was done being the opposite of okay, she would have been okay. Her life could be seen as a series of things she had failed to get over. And now it was over. where would it all go? All those memories, things she couldn't get over, and didn't, and wouldn't, now.
So this was it then. Okay. Where was her mother --or a mother, any mother, someone else's mother-- to sing her to bed?

you want the womb with all that is not there. the river, the rocks, the words, No. there are no words and none of the words are theirs. No tears, or all tears, fluid. but no grief. No train, no platform, no one being left, no one leaving. no Dog Monday, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, longer than you think. you are not thinking of the things of this world, the soldier finally come home, the old dog --old? not so old! seven years on, his Jem stepping off the train-- a flash across the platform. Chesterton's things of this world: mothers, fighting peoples. So: nations, navies, wars. but also: a cat purring, back to your face, feet against your palm, Not here. Snow, sleds, the wooded hills: "It's a wonderful world, Hobbes old buddy! Let's go exploring!" A boy and his tiger. A boy and his penguin. Goodnight Opus. Goodnight Moon. A boy and his bear in an enchanted forest, not here, playing.

dlww at 12/23/2008 11:48:00 AM