SHE is my Mother.
SHE welcomed me to her desert home and offered me an oasis when I was parched and alone.
“Come into my arms, bathe with me, let my hot water heal your pain, your sadness, your loss.” she whispered.
Her water was hot. SHE made me sweat as I sat in her arms but her touch was like silk.
SHE wrapped herself around me, comforting and soothing me.
My tears fell on her body, they became one with her, my salt merging with hers.
I cried and cried as I spoke to her of my grief, my longing for my mother, for a love that would soothe my pain.
“Sing to me”, SHE would whisper, “so I can hear your sweet voice and the love from your songs.”
I sang melodies, chants, harmonies and tunes, all from my heart. No words just sounds.
SHE enjoyed my songs.
“Keep singing”, SHE would say, “your voice will heal you.”
For four years I bathed in her body and drunk her sweet nectar, her water of life.
SHE was my sanctuary.
The bath house was her womb where I could be one with her and all my pain washed away in the heat of minerals and salt water.
SHE became my mother.
The mother I had lost whose heart now returned.
Returned to me as the water,
Returned life to my lost soul.
I wanted to stay in her arms forever.
Now I had found her, I didn’t want to lose her again.
But one day SHE sang a song to me in words I did not recognise.
“Ishq ana poo”
Those three words SHE sang and sang in repetition, a melody that seemed beautiful but also confusing to my ears.
“ishq ana poo”, “ishq ana poo”
“Mother I do not understand,” I cried. “What is your song?”
“Go home,” SHE sighed. “Go home to the waters of Danu.”
“Carry my songs, my love to your home. Danu needs your prayers. Her waters are lonely, she sings alone.”
I wrestled with her song.
I denied her truth, refused to believe SHE wanted me to leave.
Leave her watery womb, return to the bleakness and isolation of a land I had desperately tried to escape from.
But deep down in my heart I knew she was singing a truth as I started to hear a different song blowing in from over the ocean calling me home, to northern lands, far away from hot southern desert.
Danu is singing. Her people no longer hear her voice.
SHE is also my mother and she is alone.
I return to moorland, wind, rain and grey, heavy skies.
Danu’s waters are cold in dark, mysterious lochs and bubbling, winding streams.
I sing songs of the desert, of heat, life and prayer
And Danu is now my mother
SHE nestles me in heather and moss, her clear, healing waters springing from underneath my feet
Cleansing me with her heavy rains, her gift from the heavens that brings new life to my soul.
Her salty waves crashing around me welcoming me to my new island home.
Water is life.
Danu’s songs are mine but they are also yours
Come sing with me to Danu
“ishq ana poo”
Let her songs call you home.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Alex Purbrick
Alex!!! SO happy to “see” you here! I love your poem, your thoughts, your heart and soul…your calling and return…SO full and real. I miss you girl, and look forward to one day reuniting. Shundahai dear YOU
Thankyou Carolyn ❤️🙏
This is beautiful. I grew up in Michigan, surrounded by the water of the Great Lakes and many smaller lakes and rivers, and, as I get older, I definitely feel the call not just of the place where I grew up, but of the water Herself. Thank you for this poem that expresses so much of what I am also feeling!