The Thorns of Love

She was not an easy woman to love.

Hardened, unrepentant burrfish

persistence to rule of roots,

her old-world sentiment by times too much

of a rugged cross, anachronism

to bear through a month each summer.

 

Every day, another day lopped off

our temporary furlough, begun

by marching the half mile to communion,

making right with our maker,

the start to my life-long antipathy to habits

obedience for obedience’s sake. A child,

 

she held, learned their lessons, proper

ways to censure, or else

the naught man’s nettle would be  

the only bed they should expect to hoe.

Still, for all the stern rebukes, her heart

opened my mind to possibilities, how

 

each day was the gift of a page

from the eternal book of mysteries,

start to a conversation I might spread out

and savor, sip, like the clear water

from the running brook she taught me to fish.

The mind was only as good as what you sought

 

to enter into the margins. Waste not, want not,

and you shall never fear your silences. If I

became a different self, grew to comprehend

the subtleties between errant and errantry,

malicho opposed to malice, I owe my wisdom

to her tasking hand. The love among her thorns.

Ken e Bujold 

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed the poetry Ken.
"Waste not, want not,
and you shall never fear your silences. If I
became a different self, grew to comprehend
the subtleties between errant and errantry,"
The above lines. So good my friend. You asked the proper questions and thank you for sharing the outstanding poetry.
Coyote
malicho opposed to malice, I owe my wisdom

to her tasking hand. The love among her thorns.

[FGFRANKLIN]

This was quite a delightful read. I enjoyed the entirety and understood the subtilties between the lines. Parts reminded me of my mother but not the entirety. My mother was a person of deep-seated and quiet faith and every bit a lady. But she was never stern or preachy. She loved to laugh and sing and play games with all us kids (she gave birth to ten and two died in infancy). She had a very limited education but loved to read. She collected poems in an old scrapbook and she often read them to me which is where I got my love of poetry. We take from life and relationships many things. But my mother taught me that life and nature are classrooms with lessons to be learned. But we must pay attention. I see others who believe life to be a contest or a trial and they are so busy trying to win or trying to survive that they don't have much attention left to focus on the lesson at hand. I had a friend who would always tell his dad about his troubles and his dad would never judge the right or wrong of the matter but his reply was always the same, he'd simply ask, "Did you learn anything?" I thought about that years after the fact and it struck me as profound in its simplicity. The son was in the contest, suffering the trial. But his dad was in the classroom observing the lesson. Thank you for reminding me of that. I enjoyed the read.

[Ken e Bujold]

your mother sounds very much like the lady of this poem Franklin. She was my paternal grandmother. A simple god-following soul who believed in teaching by example. As the poem suggests I loved her dearly, if I didn't always appreciate the stoutness of her wisdom. to her credit, it stuck.

[Lorry]

You quoting the old rugged Cross gave me the fear I remember feeling in childhood. Growing up in the seventies, any gathering of family and friends always contained... A - alcohol, B - kids being allowed to watch as long as they shut the hell up and C - the rule of "wan singer wan song." (one singer, one song)
Every grown up had a party piece and quite a few it would be the old rugged cross, which involved singing it too loudly and pissing everyone else off whose party piece it was because you done it first.
I always thought it was hysterical that a bunch of drinks always found religion in singing, or singing about missing Scotland while they were still there. I remember being grateful we had an accordion playing uncle, but only grateful it wasn't the bagpipes he played.
We do learn a lot from our parents and their ways, just maybe not what they wanted us to learn though and although you start with saying she wasn't easy to love, your words show you did and although religion may not mean to you what it did to her, you know what it meant to her and respect that love wasn't always given so freely in a different time and place now gone.
The "wan singer, wan song" rule meant interrupting anyone singing usually ended up in at least a slap or worse... Sent to your room. It still gives me the fear to this day and I still think to myself "Not again" every time I hear it.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this reminded me of someone I loved...still do. More of a tasker on herself...so much so it carries over to others. That life of being so dissatisfied all the time...never doing enough, always expecting too much from others, that the life, the part we can just enjoy, seems to just skip by her and those she is around.
Kind of sad really...when I read your poetry, I feel like a football receiver going deep...
and it is a good run which at the end I usually catch something good...
j.

[DIVYA]

We learn the best from people we expect to learn from the least. There was something she was doing right, there was something she was doing to cultivate curiosity and creativity in you, teaching you to not fear silence, for it is a churning. She led by example, so you became different from the crowds, seeing things with greater clarity than most. And that's a winner for life. A great tribute Ken.

[Chris Shaw]

The love among her thorns. So she wasn’t an easy woman to love. A tough lady, set in her ways and beliefs. Difficult for a child to comprehend, and yet she has had
quite an impact on your life. She has been a teacher and has added value to your life while also reminding you that not all she did, you would follow by example. You poemed her and that tells me you want her remembered. I really like where you went with this Ken.

Chris

[W. Barrett Munn]

Excellent delve into self discovery; there is in the reader the sense of discovering while the poet is also uncovering and understanding the juxtapositions in his own life; this is the hallmark of great writing and great writers from Shakespeare to Wallace Stevens. Congrats.

Winston

[Ken e Bujold]

thank you for the very high praise. came from reading my irish poets the last few days