RUTH MOWRY
early memory at Crystal Lake
Untied, a woven
cotton bathing suit
slips to the floor
around my feet,
red, ruffled
like a rose.
Mother creams
my sunburned shoulders
and I lie tenderly back
in the big bed,
stare up
at bare wood rafters
enlarged by lamplight.
She will leave,
I alone of the family
upstairs, under the sheet
white as fear.
If only
the shadowy rafters
looked kindly down
like the oaks and birches
above our earlier walk
to the big lake,
my hand in hers
past fusty porches,
past Frostic’s musical
gate of art and mystery,
past the assembly hall’s
black windows,
into the sunny circle of ferns
and off with sneakers!
a race up the short dune
in blind anticipation
and sand as fine and cool
as mother’s face powder.
Up, over and running free
to the blue water
that is like a deeper sky
for me to fly in,
waves whispering
Come,
hush, come
until exhausted
I give up
and sit on the beach, shivering,
burning, sand blowing
against my cheeks
like mother’s good-night kisses,
her freshly washed skin
white, smooth, her fragrance
of sweet water
receding from me,
always calling and receding
in whispering waves.
Ruth Mowry grew up in a Baptist preacher’s home and always wondered if there might not be a deeper spiritual calling than the religious teachings surrounding her. In the middle of her own family life with her husband and two children she returned to university to complete her undergraduate degree in English, and discovered poetry writing. This exploration coincided with departure from church, and it was through that separation and writing that the spiritual work began afresh, so maybe it is not surprising that writing has become her spiritual practice.
Today much of her writing launches from the rural Michigan setting where she lives with her husband, finding in nature a replenishing life source for the spiritual journey. Ruth’s poems have been published in a few print and online journals. She blogs at washed stones.
