My Personal Connection to My Mother's Poem: The Vultures

My Personal Connection to My Mother’s Poem: The Vultures (#12)

I know my mother through the eyes of a daughter, but when I read her poem, The Vultures; I hear the voice of a painfully shy dreamer, the youngest of three sisters. I can see her when my mother tells me the stories of her childhood as their images dance unseen behind her resting lids. Private to a fault, my mother does not speak much of her life beyond the quiet New Jersey town she grew up in. She ignores my prying questions as if they were sharp pins threatening to burst the frail bubble that guards her heart. But when I gingerly run my fingers over each stanza of her poem, my mother’s hand reaches out from the faded yellow pages and cups my cheek.

As a child, my mother wanted to be like her older sister, Heidi. Strong willed with even stronger desires, she soon fell from the pedestal my mother had placed her on. The lies, the manipulation were too much too bear. I am told that I look like her. We share the same oval shaped face, deep-set dark eyes, and wispy blonde hair. But her face is more angular, sharper than mine. Like my aunt, I have strong desires for fine things and for fame. I read this poem and it reminds me of what I could be, but will never become. I would like to think that my mother’s softer nature smoothed over my sharp edges. Like my mother, I am a sparrow and not a vulture: a gentle soul.

Vultures by Nina Weston
I ask my sister, “What is it like being in the house without Daddy?”
I remember walking into the den
After my mother had died,
Looking for her on the sofa
Where she had always fell asleep,
Newspapers on her lap.
It hurt
Every time I saw her not there.
Now I dreaded walking back into the house
Fatherless.

“It’s not too hard,” she answered.
Then she wondered if the paintings just needed
Stretched canvas and new frames.
They would look good in her own house, she said,
Along with my mother’s wood coffee table and silver tea set,
I thought I heard feathers rustle
And the silent call of a monstrous bird through
The phone line.

My sister, the one with the strongest beak, smells the scraps
And remembers the taste of cameos and gold
From the last carrion.
Others in the family gather, perching on the roof
Anticipating a meal, or two, or three.
The wait has been long
And they are hungry,
Ready to slip wedding rings
Off fingers of the dead
To see how they still sparkle on the living.

My stomach is empty
But I will not eat this meal.