“Pink carnation if mother's alive; white if she isn't.”
Fidgeting with the hanky in her sleeve
WPA standout fending off tears armed wide-eyed with headache finding her voice orphan-thin-- tethered-- by wire-will She sings it still...
“Tis the month of our Mother...”
Behind that white carnation Behind walls of flesh and ribs
HUGE WATERS WANT--
...the church vacant of mothers
NEED--
the church vacant as clear blood BURSTS into faint blue concert
Whirling Burning Blurring--
The PURE
--distance--
of audience of Saints of God
OF HER MOTHER
“...O blessed and beautiful day.....” ___
"Tis The Month of Our Mother/O blessed and beautiful day..." is from a Catholic hymn sung in honor of the ****** Mary by Catholic school children during May.
May Crowning is an oddly idolatrous ritual and veneration of the statue of Mary that very much associates her with "The Queen of Heaven" and pagan rituals.
Why my mother was required to perform in this ceremony only weeks after the death of her own mother has always escaped me. She was thirteen and certainly grieving. Her father had died less than a year before.
As an older woman, she cried as she told me about it in such detail.
Certainly part of the reason we ended up in public school. Not sorry. Not sorry.
WPA was the Works Progress Administration, which during the 1930s made jobs for the needy during The Great Depression. Best known for huge development projects, WPA workers also filled jobs in clothing factory lines.