Heartbeat of the Mother

Heartbeat.


The drumming of my Mother's heart lulled me in her womb
to my birth.
through our mutual fright and pain.
Again to be held amongst her exquisite softness,
fed often with her sweet milk,
and so dreaming to hear her heart again.
How many hours spent in peace,
up against her, looking into eyes that now travel
other tracks and ways across heaven's fields?


My eye is looking back at me as it does  - inside my head.
Calm washes over me.
I am flushed, warm with peace.
The sacred song pierces gently
the reserves I hold in place ...
and I remember slower times than this,
times when I could stand and stare
till the verses wrote themselves.
Lest I not forget that please.


I recall incense from Benediction
and blacked robed nuns sitting in little cubicles
in the semi darkness of early morning
contemplating, the universe,
or what spread they  might put on their toast,
just like the rest of us... and why not.?



The lone voice of the sacred song soars above us all,
taking us with her...
first to the beating of my Mother's good heart then to
an old verandah in late winter.
Old people talk together. Alls right with my world,
and I dance away, light footed and in tune
with the world about me.
I am seven and at the “Age of Reason.”


The “Age of Reason” - first Confession -
Confess what from my poor childish heart?
Confess what from my chest brimming full of laughter
Confess what from my eyes turned towards a sky so blue?
Confess what from stubby feet dug into earth so warm?
Confess what from a heart so open and so simple?
Ah! But confess I do, because its the easier path
and I am seven and do not know.
Sometimes I do have things to confess and it sure beats
giving kids like me Prozac or other Speed.


Some nuns wield their cane daily,
Some teach with love, a love that drips compassion,
no better nor no worse than the rest of us -
A good life lesson learnt young.
Well remembered.
A balance struck.


Yet all listen to the glorious sacred music.
All are taken up or inside to a place where time is not.
I hope I never understand why some will need the cane,
the tongue lashing, the sarcasm to teach.
I hope I remember more those
who settle their mantles of compassion
gently upon the heads of the little ones they have in their care.



At seven, the Benediction over and I was off
dancing in stubble paddocks of my dreams,
whirling around our old verandah... and I saw, I saw
and now I see... my games and movement
equally as sacred as hours spent in quiet contemplation.


And here I am, I see myself, dancing golden headed
to some pattern of my own, as late summer rain
spat about my head, wild and unfettered...


till...
I come in out of the rain, an adult,
I have just washed my hair,
my mascara might run,
its not a good look. Makes sense...
but what about the heart drumming in tune with the Mother?
And so the doors of the prison begin to close.


Finally my heart will one day surge to its final crazy beating
to my death,
through my own fright and pain.
Again the Mother will hold me in her softness
and her strength, to feed often upon the sweet knowing
and so dream out in the universe, hearing it beat out the eons.


There is nothing surer on this earth, in our lives,
than the fact that we are born, and that we will die.
Its what comes in between that we have control over...
not ...shall we get hit by a semi trailer, or choke on a chicken bone,
but
have we been compassionate to ourselves and to others.
Have we quested for the truth no matter how unpalatable
to the world we live in.


Therese Mackay    
April 2004