Text:
before there was man
there was mother and the sweet
infinince of her chorus
mother of heaven, mother of earth, mother of mothers and other gods. mother of motherlands, broken waters, mountain peaks, and fertile valleys. mother of wind, mother of music, mother of sorrow and song. mother of echoes, mother of echoes, of echoes, echoes. mother of ghosts, mother of whispers, mutter of secrets, mother of homes. mother of chains, displacement, severed tongues, mother of tombs. mother many names, mother a thousand moons, mother of mercy and grace. mother of gardens, mother of eden, mother of adam, mother of eve. mother of man, mother of kind, mother of nurture and nature. mother of daughters, mother of sisters, mother of sick and tired. mother of pearl, mother of sea, mother mothering, mother of birth. mother misery, divine mother, mother of unmothered, motherless mother. mother of death, and destruction, and creation, and life. mother of beginnings, mother of endings, mother of vengeance, of resurrection. mother of firsts, mother of lasts, mother of never, and again
Dāshaun Washington is a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University. His work has been supported by Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Lighthouse Works, Ucross Foundation, The Watering Hole, and beyond. His poems have appeared in New England Review, Poetry, The Nation, the Poem-a-Day series, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
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