When we weep
Mothers cry with us.
When we weep
Grandmothers pat their eyes.
Bits of blood and spit,
Dried salt and amniotic fluid
Make tears falling briefly,
Before we push them away--
As all weeping women before us.
Gathering strength from toes
Rooted in soil memories
And arms strong with
Carrying baskets
Of babies.
Carrying baskets
Of culture.
Weeping women cling
To the edge of dream
Crying for their lost children,
Crying for their husbands.
With sobs too deep and full
Of histories of biting back moans
That their tears fall as silent as death.
Against the rough periphery of memory
The whimper of ladies’ lamentations
Carve tributaries of grief inherent
In blood, from the fishing towns of
The Mississippi river to the
Buffalo plains of Saskatchewan.
Separated by geography.
United by blood.
They sing songs of sorrow
Into our unconscious actions---
Laced with brittle
Hope,
Survival,
Unstoppable Grace.
Copyright © Rain Prud'homme-Cranford. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rain Prud'homme-Cranford is a poet, academic, musician and spoken word artist. Currently she is a Sutton Fellowship Doctoral student in English at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of Smoked Mullet Cornbread Crawdad Memory, winner of the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award, Poetry. Her work has appeared in various journals including Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry and American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Rain’s critical work focuses on (re)inserting Mvskogean and Creole Indigeneity into Southern Literary experience.
