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“Upon These Boughs that Shake
Against the Cold”

—Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

Her script was always lovely and unique,
And still unique when it began to wobble,
Along with spoken words. Increasing trouble
With memory made her less inclined to speak.
But still, she wrote her letters.

Before we’d started school, she’d made us readers:
Books were our favorite toys; once every week
We’d take some back and borrow more. Our table
Was used as much for reading and for Scrabble
As for our meals. She’d also made us writers
Of thank-you notes, considerately worded,
On stationery bordered
And colorful. She praised our early scribbles
And showed us how to make our cursive better.
Sometimes, in the summer
I’d lean against our maple tree, write doggerel
On pads of colored paper,
And in the autumn, watch the tree change color.

And when we’d moved away, she wrote us letters.
I read each one two times, and then I stored it
In a shoebox in my bedroom closet.

Dad often called. He hinted that she’d started
Forgetting things; but I had disregarded
His worries—was unable
To think of her as feeble—
Till one cold day, fatigued with lengthened winter,
I slit an envelope—“My dear, sweet Daughter,”—
At last observed the trembling lines, the crooked
Words, and felt a shiver.
I’d filed my fears away with each letter, guarded
My eyes from slips of her pen that should have alerted
Me. Now each word she wrote looked like a splinter
Of that old maple tree whose limbs are breaking
Sliver by fragile sliver;
Each phrase lay on the paper
A gnarled bough, its twisted figure speaking
Of weakness read between its scribbled lines,
As a broken branch inclines
Against another, not detached, but creaking.
Then came his anxious call
To tell me of her fall.
As usual, she’d gone
Out for her morning run.
A neighbor saw her foot land on some rubble
Beside the road; she crumpled limply down.
Later, conscious again, she was unable
(In spite of cuts and bruises) to recall
The incident. Since then, she cannot spell
Her name, or speak a sentence when we call.

I’m cleaning house, and tossing out assorted
Disorder from the dark depths of my cluttered
Closet, melancholy and bewildered.
Perhaps I should have long ago discarded
These memories before intense emotions
Forbid it. Now I’m paralyzed by notions
That, since her speech and writing are in tatters,
These letters can’t be tossed out like old sweaters.

Her brittle, trembling hands can no more hold
A steady pen; her memory’s not stable;
No longer are her mind or fingers able
To stop from quivering against the cold.

That time of year my children may behold
In me before too long,
When green or yellow words no longer hang
Upon my boughs when I am very old.

She’d taught us words; but now her words were shaking,
As are our souls, to see her sweet soul breaking.

Previously published in The North American Anglican

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Cynthia Erlandson is a poet and fitness professional living in Michigan.  Her second collection of poems, Notes on Time, has recently been published by AuthorHouse, as was her first (2005) collection, These Holy Mysteries.  Her poems have also appeared in First Things, Modern Age, The North American Anglican, The Orchards Poetry Review, The Book of Common Praise hymnal, and elsewhere.

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19 Responses

  1. Julian D. Woodruff

    Probably the best of yours I’ve seen, Cynthia–which is saying a lot. The freedom or looseness in rhyme and line length seem entirely appropriate to the ceding of control of faculties and the writer’s growing awareness that the “sailing on serenely” of the mother is at an end. Thanks for republishing this powerful piece.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      Thank you so much, Julian. I especially appreciate your observation about the appropriateness of the loose rhyme scheme and line length; sometimes while I’m writing (including this time) I have been unaware (except subconsciously?) of what I’m doing. I’m sure many poets have had this mysterious phenomenon happen to them, and I’m grateful that you saw it.

      Reply
  2. Jeremiah Johnson

    I love the simile here:

    “Each phrase lay on the paper
    A gnarled bough, its twisted figure speaking
    Of weakness read between its scribbled lines,
    As a broken branch inclines
    Against another, not detached, but creaking.”

    Also, in that second to last stanza, you make me think of how, leaning on my arm walking down her flagstoned walkway in her 90’s, my grandmother remarked to me that “one day you’ll need this help.” So true!

    Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      Thank you very much, Jeremiah. I’m really glad you like the comparison of the gnarled bough to the scribbled lines. I’m so glad we learned to write in cursive; I think this generation is mostly not learning it, and I truly think it’s a great loss. And I agree — I don’t like the prospect of old age, or seeing it in our loved ones.

      Reply
  3. Paul Freeman

    This has the feel of true experience about it.

    Whether or not, thanks for a poignant read, Cynthia.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      You are quite right, Paul; though some details have been changed for the poem, it is autobiographical. I’m glad that you felt it; thank you very much for your comment.

      Reply
  4. Brian Yapko

    I love this poem, Cynthia, which speaks so poignantly from the heart. I love the rich language, the imagery (especially the tree images) but I especially love your quite brilliant use of form. The poem begins and ends with classic poetry order, which seems very fitting for a piece which contemplates the cycle of life. Your structure gives the appearance of a slow unraveling as we leave Section 1 and enter the middle sections which deal with dementia. However, your blank verse, despite varying line lengths, ensures that this remains a classic poem and doesn’t quite cross the border into free verse. We then have a return to order in the closing stanza which parallels the subject of a new generation. One final word about the content: you capture the unbearable pain of seeing someone we love slowly deteriorate. It hurts to read but you’ve captured something real and true.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      I’m very thankful for your comment, Brian, and that you have clearly read the poem very attentively. Thank you also for the compassion you express. I do find it fascinating that both you and Julian, and also Margaret, have perceived things about the form or structure of the poem of which I was not consciously aware — but that I can see now. I would love to hear whether you, or anyone else here, has experienced having written poems that turn out to do something in a way that you didn’t expect. It’s kind of an eerie, but thrilling, feeling.

      Reply
  5. Margaret Coats

    Sadder than Shakespeare, Cynthia. I love Sonnet 73, and you make capable use of echoes in this poem. But you expand the speaker’s experience of her mother’s deterioration almost unbearably. What utter misery in the gradual discovery of these “bare ruined choirs,” including the daughter’s regret and self-blame for noticing her mother’s condition too late, and now being unable to discard memories it seems she might like to abandon if only she could. This reminds me of Dostoevsky’s prose, and it seems appropriate to de-formalize the poem’s lines, retaining meter as a technique of controlling feeling. The heavy use of imperfect feminine end-rhyme contributes to the effect; do you intend this to mark the speaker’s perspective as particularly feminine?

    Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      Thank you, Margaret; I’m honored to have such compliments from you. Similar to the thought I wrote above to Julian and Brian, I hadn’t even realized the possible connection of the lines with feminine ending, to the female “characters” (my mother and myself, the narrator). Thank you for pointing this out; perhaps it was subconscious on my part; perhaps just lucky.

      Reply
  7. Shaun C. Duncan

    This is a very beautiful piece on an incredibly sad topic. You’ve done well to allow the poem to evoke an emotional response in the reader without resorting to anything maudlin or manipulative – a difficult line to walk, particularly for an autobiographical work. I can only echo what others have said about the use of form; the looseness of line length and rhyme give a great sense of openness without lapsing into free verse and really help to give the true rhymes, particularly the closing couplet, extra punch.

    Reply
  8. Jack DesBois

    Cynthia, this is an exceptional poem, full and complex with emotions that probably can’t be expressed any more clearly or concisely than you have done. Exactly what good poetry should be.

    Reply
  9. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Cynthia, this multilayered poem crafted with a fine eye and beautiful heart is intriguing, heart-touching, and soul-stirring. I love the nod to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. I love the exquisite imagery. But, most of all, I love the compassionate message which will reach out and touch many, I am sure. The form intrigues me, and I wonder whether it grew organically… I believe some poems dictate their journey… a journey we follow on rather than map out, and I always find those poems to be the best. I will be returning to this fascinating and affecting poem. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      Thank you so much, Susan! It is always an honor to receive your approval. I do believe the form grew organically, as if the poem was telling me — through subconscious means — what it should look and sound like, and I was just, as you say, following its directions. The poem is the boss of the poet; the form has to fit the reason for the poem’s being. I do think that, in our best writing, we don’t “map” things out ahead of time. Even in high school essay assignments, when we were supposed to write an outline first, I always wrote the essay first and then went back and made an outline of it.

      Reply
  10. Alena Casey

    Beautiful and moving. The ebb and flow of the poem in rhyme and rhythm add much.

    Reply

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