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How do mothers . . .
No. Start again.
WHY do mothers have to teach us distance?
Picture the knee,
skirt-covered or
(more likely now) blue-jeaned.
The mother sits on straight-backed chair,
erect, precise.
Yes, that's the mother.
And standing before her is the toddler,
hand on that skirt,
that denim.
Oh. Am I being too literal?
Well, that's just my schtick.
Ignore it.
Imagine, if you prefer,
any mother,
anywhere (not in a chair).
Imagine the child of any age—
older than, younger than—
it really makes no difference
to the outcome,
which will almost always be the same:
distance.
Distance willed by mother alone, I think.
Distance as pathology.
Distance as the only path to mother's health.
Put question marks after those sentences,
for they are not declarative
but interrogative.
Why?
How?
What happens if she doesn't teach the distance?
This is the real question.
Are you sure you want to look into this?
The opposite of distance is closeness,
proximity, nearness, bonding,
fencelessness.
We learn distance at our mother's knee,
and then we pass it on.
What's right? What's wrong?
I seem to be seesawing here,
Or swinging. The pendulum arcs
from one polar point
through a middle ground
and to the other polar point.
Avoid the Poles (write a Czech instead).
Oh, don't be silly.
Avoid the poles.
Is the answer in the midde?
Mothers: teach middle distance at your knee.
Enough distance to create the boundaries.
Avoid no-distance.
Avoid great distance.
Teach the middle distance.
And how many angels can dance on the head of this pin?
Here's the way to do it:
Mothers: hold your babies as close as you can
for as long as you can.
Give good-bye kisses until they are faster than you
and move off before you can catch them.
Mothers: don't distance that lamb from its ewe
(who is you).
The distance will come in its own time,
when it is fit and proper, meet and just.
Until then, hang on to every baby.
Baby at your knee? Play with her.
Baby at your knee? Pick him up and hug him.
Baby at your knee? Talk to her with your words
and your hands and your arms and your whole being.
Show that baby you will not relinquish him willingly.
They'll have to pry her (metaphorically speaking)
from your cold, dead arms.
On the other hand, don't forget:
It is the duty of the parent
to inflict the sacred wound.
Maybe the wound this time is
distance.
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