Theia of Many Names

A poem for (and thoughts on): the legacy of mothers.

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Theia of Many Names
by Kristine Neeley

Shoes scattered, again, by the back door,
stars flung across the universe of home,
trails of sky-children birthed bittersweet.

Untold stories, written from my own entry:
a lifetime held behind lock and key,
only to emerge for an armful of detritus.

It is titanic work to stitch garments
for forms that refuse to stop changing,
to stop growing, to stop calling forth the day.

Dawn breaking, sun blazing, moon baring
anew each night unto death, amen, 
and me, cleaning up behind them, forever after.

I tuck silver strands behind ears meant
for listening, hold with hands made to mend,
and with my eyes, see everything, always.

With this vision, I mark the paths we take,
while already, they make their own,
my brilliance left in the dust of clouds.

What remains of my many names,
forgotten, is only and ever, Mother: 
eternally written in the light on their faces.

Photo by Fabian Bächli on Unsplash

On the thirtieth day of writing poems in April, I opened my browser to read this:

“And now for our last prompt of the year… we’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend…”¹

It was the kind of day in which my first thought went something like, “Oh, I know, I know! Sisyphus!” Perhaps the monotony, the repetition, the endless task of rolling boulders was getting to me.

I went about my morning, up my proverbial hill, over and over, until I tripped on a pair of shoes at the back door, some Greek myth shifting up out of the rubble of earlier research to the surface of my mind.

Theia, Titan daughter of earth and sky, who imprisoned her for a time. Theia, mother of sun, moon, and dawn. Theia, of Plutarch’s fable, unable to stitch dresses for her moon daughter’s changing form. Theia, gifted with sight and shine, but known most for the radiance and light she bore through her children.

This poem wrote itself, then, while I pitched shoes into bins and hung bags and jackets on hooks meant for their keeping, but which forget to be used. Another day, another task. And yet, this: this is the work.

Surrender and tension, both, while words piece themselves together to perhaps live in the poiēma² of me, and even more, the poiēma of the children who call me a name it was only possible for them to speak.

If all there is to my making is this, may that be enough.

Thank you for reading,

1. https://www.napowrimo.net/day-thirty-10/

2. poiēma (poy'-ay-mah) | ποίημα, noun neuter

1. that which has been made

2. a work, specifically the work of God as a creator.