Jul 2019
Contractions
With each tap of the telegraph wire
A physician and a hotel room
A season out of turn
A baby too early.
Mrs. Sullavan and Mrs. McFarlin,
The hard-wrought Irish women who
Understood the pain radiating through your hips
Called to you softly through the fog
Placed your still Gladys in your arms
As your warmth slipped
From her tiny body.
A bud cut from its branch
Wilting in your hands.
Your husband’s arms wrapped around you,
Your screams come down through the years, curdling,
As the blood kept pouring onto the sheets
His Mary, dying, a year’s moments after saying “I do”
A year to love, and then have it torn from the womb
Where it should have continued to blossom.
A flower cut from its branch
Wilting in his hands.
His arms were the last things you felt
As your heart stopped
And his shattered.
Mrs. Sullavan and Mrs. McFarlin
The hard-wrought Irish women
Who wept with your mother
Coaxed your husband to eat
And scrubbed the sheets in the sun,
Recited their prayers
With a rosary of tiny tombs
For the buds and the flowers
Ripped from their branches.
Author’s Note:
This poem is based on a letter found in some of my family’s records. Some liberties of imagination have been taken with events. A transcript and photograph of the letter is below.
Denver Colorado, October 29th, 1891
Mrs Serena J. ****
Dear Madam,
We feel it our duty to write you a letter although we feel it is a painful task. We will do by you as we would wish you to do for us under similar circumstances.
Your daughter Mary, and husband arrived at our hotel about 9am on the 27th. Her husband had telegraphed to Denver while he was yet some distance from here for a physician and a room and she was brought directly here to the hotel on arriving here. Your daughter was kindly received by us and her husband was as attentive and kind to her as it was possible for him to be, and is almost heart broken over the death of his wife. Mary died in her husband’s arms.
Let not your heart be troubled. I have seen you through the sixth trouble and I will not forsake you in the seventh. May the good lord protect you and Mary’s father, and may your last days be your best days.
Mary and her baby are in heaven, and if we are faithful until death, we shall meet her on that beautiful shore.
God Bless You,
Mrs. Mary Sullavan and Mrs. Sarah A. McFarlin
Note from unknown source: Aunt Mary had written my mother that if her baby was a girl she was going to name it Gladys. The baby was a girl and died at birth. I was born just a little over two months later, Jan 2, 1892. And Mama named me Mary Gladys after Mary and the baby.
With each tap of the telegraph wire
A physician and a hotel room
A season out of turn
A baby too early.
Mrs. Sullavan and Mrs. McFarlin,
The hard-wrought Irish women who
Understood the pain radiating through your hips
Called to you softly through the fog
Placed your still Gladys in your arms
As your warmth slipped
From her tiny body.
A bud cut from its branch
Wilting in your hands.
Your husband’s arms wrapped around you,
Your screams come down through the years, curdling,
As the blood kept pouring onto the sheets
His Mary, dying, a year’s moments after saying “I do”
A year to love, and then have it torn from the womb
Where it should have continued to blossom.
A flower cut from its branch
Wilting in his hands.
His arms were the last things you felt
As your heart stopped
And his shattered.
Mrs. Sullavan and Mrs. McFarlin
The hard-wrought Irish women
Who wept with your mother
Coaxed your husband to eat
And scrubbed the sheets in the sun,
Recited their prayers
With a rosary of tiny tombs
For the buds and the flowers
Ripped from their branches.
Author’s Note:
This poem is based on a letter found in some of my family’s records. Some liberties of imagination have been taken with events. A transcript and photograph of the letter is below.
Denver Colorado, October 29th, 1891
Mrs Serena J. ****
Dear Madam,
We feel it our duty to write you a letter although we feel it is a painful task. We will do by you as we would wish you to do for us under similar circumstances.
Your daughter Mary, and husband arrived at our hotel about 9am on the 27th. Her husband had telegraphed to Denver while he was yet some distance from here for a physician and a room and she was brought directly here to the hotel on arriving here. Your daughter was kindly received by us and her husband was as attentive and kind to her as it was possible for him to be, and is almost heart broken over the death of his wife. Mary died in her husband’s arms.
Let not your heart be troubled. I have seen you through the sixth trouble and I will not forsake you in the seventh. May the good lord protect you and Mary’s father, and may your last days be your best days.
Mary and her baby are in heaven, and if we are faithful until death, we shall meet her on that beautiful shore.
God Bless You,
Mrs. Mary Sullavan and Mrs. Sarah A. McFarlin
Note from unknown source: Aunt Mary had written my mother that if her baby was a girl she was going to name it Gladys. The baby was a girl and died at birth. I was born just a little over two months later, Jan 2, 1892. And Mama named me Mary Gladys after Mary and the baby.
