Cape Lookout from North of McPhillip’s Beach,
Pastel, by John Cummings
My Mother’s Next-to-Last Words
Note: In his poem, “The Last Words of My English Grandmother,” William Carlos Williams writes that the mother says this while gazing out the ambulance window on its way to the hospital:
What are all those
fuzzing looking things out there?
Trees? Well, I’m tired
of them and rolled her head away.
I drove her to a beach park,
coaxed her out of the car,
hefted her into her wheelchair,
and spent no small amount
of effort to push her up a paved,
somewhat steep path to a bluff.
A morning breeze fluffed
up her thin hair the color
of a newspaper left out in the sun.
She gave off the smell
of the pages of an old book.
It was weirdly warm
for February. Still,
she’d managed to put on
her purple parka
dotted with spots of food.
The Sound had that tin-like
bluish tint on a day
of few clouds.
Her eyes were going.
Offshore, some distance,
a tug thumped its way south
toward Elliott Bay.
I described the scene,
knowing she could not see
the tug or, more distant,
the snow-etched peaks
of the Olympic Range.
She leaned forward.
Beautiful! she said several times.
Just beautiful! And the trees.
They take my breath away!
There were no trees,
not in the direction she faced.
And the stand
of alders on a hillside
behind us had the dead
spidery look of late winter.
It’s all too much, she said.
Too beautiful for words.
On the drive back, again
she said, Just beautiful.
And how glorious the trees,
the mountains, and to feel
the sun on my face.
She put her liver-spotted hand
on my knee,
her nails newly painted red.
Back home, I wrestled her
for the last time into the wheelchair.
She cried out twice,
then did not speak again
until we negotiated
the two steps of her porch.
She turned to me,
her voice clear, her eyes
still showing some green.
Those mountains, she said.
The tugboat. The apple blossoms.
The trees. Just beautiful!
_______________
Edward Harkness
Review by Keith Hansen
In My Mother’s Next-to-last Words the writer sets the reader up for a contrast between the experience of Williams’ mother and the mother of the poem’s speaker. Several thoughts came to mind about the Williams excerpt. Is this telling us more about him or his mother? Her experience of dying or his experience of her experience? The tone is flat- no joy, wonder, or gratitude- just exhaustion and negation; life weighed in the balance and found wanting.
The difference between this view and that of the mother in Harkness’s poem could hardly be greater. It’s still the indignities and pain of old age (loss of eyesight, the “purple parka spotted with food,” her crying out as she’s being transferred from the wheelchair), but the subject’s response to it is so dissimilar. Why is this? We don’t know enough in either case to make a clear judgment, but we can venture a guess or two. Is it a matter of character, the habitual responses to life lived over many years? Is it personality- some people are just naturally more optimistic or pessimistic than others? Is it brain chemistry or the fact that loss of memory and cognitive ability along with chronic pain can simply erode a person’s ability to engage with or enjoy anything?
We don’t need to know any of this definitively in order to enjoy a poem about a beautiful soul. The pacing of the language meted out by the line breaks, the echoes of sound, the wonderfully concrete and evocative imagery (“…hair the color of newspaper left out in the sun…”, “She gave off the smell of the pages of an old book.”) serve to create a flash of beauty in the midst of the ugliness of decline and death.
Review by Jared Pearce
The images here are sad and spot-on, at least according to my experience. Further, the idea the mother presents about life all around us—especially against the horror of death—really is beautiful.
Review by Claire Scott
A deeply moving poem about a son taking his dying mother to the beach. I like the verbs: “coaxed,” “hefted,” “thumped.” There is such tenderness in the way he is with her without descending into the trite or maudlin. We see what is going on and feel the son’s love. The touches are beautiful. “Her purple parka/dotted with spots of food.” I like “tin-like/bluish tint. The sadness that the mother can’t see what is really there, but enjoys what she thinks she sees. “Repeating “Just beautiful” is powerful. Do the last two lines need to be in italics? I am not sure about “thin hair the color/of a newspaper left out in the sun.” It didn’t speak to me the way so many other lines did. Also I don’t think you need the William Carlos Williams lines. The poem is beautifully satisfying without them. Thanks for this poem and for showing that we all see different things.
Review by Nancy Christopherson
This is such a heartwarming, heartbreaking poem, so tender, kind, loving, and so sad and lovely. And so very clearly personal and real. I think we have all had (or will soon have) a similar, meaningful, preciously-held experience while caring for an elderly parent at or near the end of their life. The line lengths, the imagery, the dialog, the physical details, the colors and smells, all of these add up to what amounts to soul food fueling our final days with our loved ones. The food-spotted parka, the liver spots, the breeze fluffing the wispy hair, the huff and puff uphill to the bluff, the tug, the mountain peaks, the bright nail polish, the mother crying out twice while being moved to the wheelchair, these all add up to the reality of the moment, something to hold onto as only a poem can produce. Lovely poem, Edward Harkness. Thank you for writing and sharing it.
Review by Kathryn de Leon
A lovely poem, so poignant, I just love it. Amazing imagery, “thin hair the color of newspaper left out in the sun,” “that tin-like bluish tint on a day of few clouds,” wow. I just read William Carlos Williams’ poem, nice comparison between the two. Hopefully the speaker was comforted by the beauty their mother witnessed, even if the trees, mountains, etc., were not really there.