Pallor of the granite cliff-face
floating—mineral made underground,
under pressure, like character.
In the evening, smell of dry pine-dust,
fragrance of childhood July,
when I did not know what would happen in my life.
All week I have looked into face after face,
the eyes above the mouth, always two of them,
always one mouth, each with its tongue.
I was never a monster. My mother was not
a monster. We demonstrated the human.
When I was a forked girl, sheer tuning,
I don’t think I thought that I was not loved.
I think I thought that that was love.
I wish I could look into that stunned young face,
I yi yi, and say, You are the
equal of the long-tailed weasel,
you do not have to ask for forgiveness.
In the morning the earth is still suspended in the air,
planet and its breath of atmosphere
still resting on nothing, still orbiting—
the sun has us on its fire string.
The pond holds
level, it holds
the upside-down slope near timberline.
I contain my mother. And it comes to me:
I think she never beat me in these mountains,
never in a rented house.
I think she took one summer month
off. Now I ask her, Give me the rest
of my life. Of course she is ash,
she is fee fie foe, she is ground bone.
And I still walk the earth.
—Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds has lived for fifty years in New York City. Parts of childhood summers were spent at Lake Tahoe, where she is now part of the Community of Writers for a week each June.
