Five's Word to Your Mother Poetry contest was a great success and a lot of fun. Thank you to all who entered and sent us the wonderful odes to the feminine we requested. There were several winners who we invited to read their words on KTAOS 101.9fm and Luna103.7fm.
Click on the links to download a quicktime file of the readings by the authors
(unless noted otherwise)
Kids Category
Simon Animals, Taos, Age 10, publishing prize winner
(these are separate, unnamed haikus - but we like them together too)
Beautiful petals
temper like a spiky stem
my mom a wild rose
Rainbow feather bird
picking fruit in the orange tree,
she's a smart parrot.
As she plants the tree,
the roots spread through the wet earth
tunneling their home.
Moving like lightning
my mother talks with her hands
a wonderful mom.
Words to my Mom
For my lovely mother that does stuff for me –
My mom is nice, she loves me
She shares with me, she hugs me.
She helps me pray in the night,
She helps me give my ducks and chicks food and water.
Even if she is not close to me,
I will always love her and think of her,
I will not ever forget her.
My Special Mom
My mom loves me,
She hugs and kisses me,
She prays with me at night,
She lets me wear her high heels and jewelry,
She lets me snuggle with her.
I love my mom,
always in my heart, no matter what,
I will always love her.
Adult Category
Priscilla Baca y Candelaria, Albuquerque, publishing prize winner
Mama's Kitchen
Sustenance, food, ven a comer
Nourishment
Strong, spiritual healers,
have graced the portals
of my existence.
Bolio clicking, dough is spread,
Lessons taught
Militance begins
in the kitchen
Mujeres siempre con su lumbre
calientando algo
Women
always cookin'
tantalizing aroma
chile, soul food
Woman of the valley
making her children strong.
If you feed them
they will come.
Nourishing body and soul
con cuentos y un frijol
Abuelitas' biscochitos,
delicacies
melt in your mouth
As you and mind's eye
hear
her words.
Ancients grace every corner
every crevice of
your being.
Child danced across
kitchen floor.
Ahh--woo--ahh!
Militance born in
Mama's kitchen.
Revolucion to the
Rat-ta-ta-tat
of a rolling pin.
Chicanas Somos
from La Rena,
a la malinche, hija, madre,
La Guadalupana,
Leaders,
caretakers of our
Most precious jewel,
La Pleve.
Mother’s Hands
My eyes glance down
at my hands.
Startled, I see not mine,
but Mother’s….
her sapphire and pearl ring
snug on my finger,
oddly out of place,
testimony to her absence.
There, too, landmarks
on a topographical map –
the veins I used to trace
with my finger, in wonder
at how age had carved
its distinctive signs on
the back of her hand.
But no – it’s my hand!
Her ring, her veins, even
the shape of her fingernails –
somehow transferred to me.
How can this be?
Sudden sorrow enfolds me.
Gone, now, my mother,
and I am growing old.
A fleeting moment of loss
contained in a glance
at the back of my hand.
Brian Lewis, Taos – read by Caitlin Legere
Street of my Youth (for my Mom)
We live our lives quietly
but when we die we leave something
stronger than memory behind
like shoes where our own shoes have been.
And in the hollow our absence makes,
something comes in to fill the space.
I don’t know if this is justice
it is just the way time marks itself
in the same place.
Mrs. Braham came before the first house
and as a young girl she lived in a tent.
Later her sons scattered.
Because of this a gnarled oak has grown
where her house once stood
and offers its green solace of shade.
At daybreak forever, Ms. Monroe tends her garden.
With bare hands she coaxed the cabbage,
cradled the roots, as she had done as a nurse.
She practiced this way,
speaking with the dark soil
until she was ready to invite death
between the white sheets of her bed.
In this same room, Christiana was born
howling into the waiting arms of her father.
She was a small tear in dark fabric,
a shining remnant of desire.
Mrs. Thompson, Ann is buried beside her first husband
and Jim, her second has gone to meet her.
There is sorrow in this,
but also the lasting knowledge that you never leave those you love.
There are others. We carry them like the memory of our first home,
our first friends. Their living names are carved in the trees
or gouged in cracked cement.
Their uneven lives are a eulogy that anoints us with breath.
The street of my youth is no cemetery,
still a living place.
My mother, Sophie to most, Mom to me,
has now left. She died at home, a home I possess
and cradle with the love she left in it.
I will miss her, but then I will miss all of the women
of the street of my youth.
They all have left undeniable influences on me.
Ironic now, that I recognize the street of my youth
as my mother and mothers.
So remembering is a happiness like a greeting
and like a greeting it holds the seeds of pain.
For my mother I cry, for my neighbors I cry,
and for me I cry,
I can finally say goodbye to the street of my youth.
CJ Thomas, Albuquerque – read by Caitlin Legere
Pueblo Mother’s Sestina
Mother gently gathers
Clay for sacred curves.
Tenderly dreams,
Coiling light beams.
Her eyes constellations,
Arms stretch into circles.
Mother grinds quiet circles,
Strength she gathers
From whispering constellations.
Patiently the curves
Of her hands, steady beams,
Work while afternoon dreams.
And with the dreams
Mother sifts circles
Beneath cedar beams.
As evening gathers,
Water cuts through making curves
Over jars in angled constellations.
Blooming under constellations,
Mother laughing dreams,
Kneads the curves
Into circles
Then loaves of clay she gathers
As Creation beams.
Dusk dances along beams,
Humming closer constellations.
Moist clay gathers
Form, wrapped in dreams,
Kneaded to circles
Rich swaddled curves.
Evening breeze curves
Dancing along beams.
Slowly drying circles,
Clay rows of constellations.
Brimming Mother dreams.
Night’s glory gathers.
Mother fires clay in circles, in sacred smoldering curves.
Her children she also gathers, each path beams
Delicate constellations, sifting through her dreams.