Pacing back and forth in the dark was an exhausted mother, struggling to put her young, dependent child to sleep.
The infant, seemingly unaware of his mother’s fatigue, was crying away through the night.
An aching back, throbbing arms, and the longing for sleep weren’t enough to hinder the duty as a mother she had to fulfill.
In the meantime, the sun had risen and a new day had begun.
Tired, but rejuvenated by the noon sunlight, she sits in the warm, relaxing bath water, holding her child on her wet thighs.
In this poem, “Day Bath”, Debra Spencer, does an extraordinary job of using descriptive writing to not only illustrate a vivid image of what is going on literally, but how the mother is feeling as well.
Spencer writes, “Last night I wanted nothing more than to get him out of my arms. Today he fits neatly along the hollow my thighs make, and with his fragrant skin against mine I feel brash, like a sunflower.”
The reader is able to envision the mother’s exact emotions through her confessions of struggle.
Eliminating all misery from the night before, the simple physical contact and skinship between mother and child was able to flourish and become nothing but affectionate tenderness.
This illustration displays the exclusive yearning that is innately present in a mother to provide and nurture that I too, would like to have for my future child.
Source: “Good Poems” – Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keilor (2005)
Page 17. “Day Bath” by Debra Spencer
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