GUESTPOST "Oh Mother, Mother" by Beth Anne Boardman #amwriting #SundayMorning #poetry

TROPHONIUS & THE BEES
photo courtesy Beth Anne Boardman

       OH MOTHER, MOTHER... 

in grief

sometimes

i cannot say more....

‘mother of gentleness’

‘mother of mercy’

‘mother of kindness’

visit me....

give me the vision

of the next few minutes –

remind me to breathe....

remind me of your presence....

remind me that these events

that shake me –

that topple my world

into pain –

remind me,

oh mother,

the sun will rise....

the sun will rise....

and oh mother, mother –

you will show me how to begin again....

©2017 Oh Mother, Mother Beth Anne Boardman mythopoetry.com

©2017 Oh Mother Mother Beth Anne Boardman All Rights Retained 

____________

notes
In mythology Trophonius or Trophonios is the story of a man who is swallowed up by the earth and transformed into the oraculur demigod or daimon (spirit) of a cave near the town of Lebadeia or Boiotia.

Trophonius translates  as "nourisher of the mind" from the Greek tropheô words and noos. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beth Anne Boardman, RN, MA, PhD lives in California and New Hampshire. She travels and lectures on the Mythology of Sport; Women and Myth; and the Alchemy of Adolescence (her dissertation topic), in addition to consulting as a writer to websites.  

Recently, Beth has served on the board of the Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni Association and as Regional Coordinator for local alumni. Her career spans work as a registered nurse, the study of world dance and music, and the profound joy of raising two children.

BLOG

For stories and essays on creative life and culture visit Dr. Beth Ann Boardman at MYTHMUSE

POETRY BLOG

POEMS FROM THE OTHERWORLD

SUNDAY POETRY

walking along, the pair
made it half-way round
the path in the park, when he
said to her, “you ought be called Kirsten”
(pronounced cursed-in)

descensus, she thought
descensus carried inward (!)
and the name, she thought
pronouncing it the one way
carries in ascent a souling of the spell in
its mattering, a matter carried hidden―a dis
n-chanted in the soul of its last letter; it makes her think “Christ”, a Kirst’n one, somehow liminal, at work.

Is this where Christ went, she thought
is even now
inward to give Kirsten blessing?

And they have written down this story
so no one forgets what happens; Christ
dies to the affairs of the world and yet
this kind of dying means to die
is to become more alive than ever
Kirsten soul, a keeper to a hidden Christ and
what bodies cursed-in soul, the bride
brings Kirsten blessing.

she says to him then, “I think I see poetry.”


©2013 Kirsten’s Path stephanie pope mythopoetry.com * Kirsten, Gr. means “walks with god”



notes_________________________________________________

on liminal images/ ex. Harrowing of Hell Latin: Descensus Christi ad Inferos, / "the descent of Christ into hell" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell ), Old English and Middle English term for the triumphant descent of Christ into Hell (ie Hades/Aides, meaning the invisible.)
In other words, these are metaphors in nonlocality) this space/gap lies in between the non-ordinary time in christic Crucifixion and Resurrection bringing salvation to all who die thusly. A Kirsten blessing then involves an image operating in liminality, disappearing as it does into a certain background of historical depth (aka a mythic pattern).

And, in this case, the image’s “desensus ad inferos” disappears into a mythic pattern giving rise and reappearing again in the “poetic body” of the poem.


According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, the Descensus Christi ad Inferos story first appears clearly in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, also known as the Acts of Pilate, written by a Roman praetorian named Ananias circa 425 CE. As an image in Christian art, the harrowing is also known as the Anastasis (a Greek word for "resurrection"), considered a creation of Byzantine culture and first appearing in the West in the early 8th century.