Sacrifice

TURBULENT SACRIFICE

/ deuxiemepeau / 11 Comments

 

Mama was an unmarried mother
at the end of the summer of 75
as Joni hissed of the snakes
in the gardens of complacency
where ignorance was still very much alive.

Mama was only a girl in the growing
and possibly no more than just 18
when she bent down and placed
a kiss on my cheek and whispered
goodbye to her own little green.

Mama is someone who I’ve never met
aside from the dream I once had
of her life in a kingdom that ruled
you could not mother a child unless
at first you were a legitimate wife.

Mama was an unmarried girl one winter
in the arms of a man barely stretched
from a boy, her trust in the throws
that left little to believe in and a pain
that pulled on the strings of goodbye.

Mama was once an unmarried mother
and bursting with thoughts her shape
couldn’t hide, but helpless and hopeless
were not part of her form and so she did
what she could when you can’t be the bride.

Mama was a childless woman
when winter that year came cold with its calling,

and the tears started breaking
and the leaves began falling

like the water that had broken,
like the hold that had not held,
like the hope that was drowned,
and the hand that was expelled…

too short, too quick, too hard,
too much to let go for good

and the snakes started hissing on the lawns.

Mamma was the unmarried mother
who gave me the greatest gift
that anyone could, of growing up
knowing that what she had done
was to give me up for a greater good.

     

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

This is a repost form my Joni Mitchell series.

Last month I added my name to the National Adoption Contact Preference Register in Ireland. Maybe the story still has a tale to be told, time will tell…

Sometimes knowing where you came from gives you an idea of where to go. This coming December, after 23 years living abroad, I will move to Ireland to start a whole new adventure in my home country that now feels like an exciting new land waiting to be discovered. I am looking back, at the moment, but seeing in that vision, only where the future will take me. Thanks to you all for listening on along the way,

Love Dami xx

WAR OF THE WORLD

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

IMG_5978
How did it feel to hang by nails and wait for a death You were born to endure?
Created by The Father as a symbol of His power to save a crumbling humanity,
He gave you life for it to be ripped from your body. No saving grace for you,
no end to the pain, no Lord to help you. The Father, protector, divine Creator,
silently watching as your all too human pain poured from your all too human body.

Did you suffer a lifetime for every second that you remained in that earthly body,
punctured by earthly hands, jeered by earthly voices, cried for by earthly women?
Did Mary know the gift weaned on her bosom would depart this world so heinously?
Did She trust in the promise of heaven, did She believe in the prophecy of angels,
at the end, when your screams shuck the heavens? Did You question His promise
of a seat by His side while the cold nails split you and the steel blade slaughtered you?

A jew hated by jews, a jew betrayed by jews. Did you foresee that day, on that cross,
how the world would shake in your aftermath? He sacrificed you for the salvation
of humanity but ever since that salvation has waged wars in your Father’s name.
He first split the earth from the heavens and then he let man split the earth in two.

Did you die in vain, that day, or did you die to show that the innocent must suffer?
But what is lost most through suffering is innocence; when eyelids are stitched open
so no pain goes unseen, when the voices are raised so we hear the pain in each scream.
 
Today all the crosses that hang around our necks are adorned with jewels and pearls.
That day, on the cross, as you rose from humanity, did You foresee the war of the world?

 

All Words and Pictures by Damien B. Donnelly

TO GIVE BUT NOT LET GO

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

Give
give him
she gave him
she gave him life
but she couldn’t keep him.
Give
give him
she gave him
she gave him a name
but she couldn’t call him.
Give
give him
she gave him
she gave him something better
she gave him something brighter.
Give
give him
she gave him
she gave him that forever 
she gave him that forever after.
Give
give him
give him up
she gave him life
and he gave her thanks.
Hold
hold him
she held him
she held him once
before they took him.
Him
her son
he; her boy
he; who was her baby
he; who was her sacrifice.
Give
give him
she gave him
she gave him up
but she never let him go.

 

All Words and sketches by Damien B. Donnelly

The Judgment of the Shadows

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

Did we smile at each other,

At least, at all,

Before the bond broke

That day, that morning,

After the dawn rose

In all its innocence,

Imperceptive

Of how it would part us,

Ignorant of the virtue you’d lost

And the sadness it would cost.

 

 

And did you feel the judgment of the shadows?

 

 

Did I know you at all,

That day, at least, back then,

In the thin thread of time

That we borrowed briefly,

In that deceiving dawn

That polluted the promise

Of the morning’s light

As so-called Elders

Counted constantly

The limited hold we had

Over each other,

Over the past, on the pain-

You- bleeding fresh in convent bed,

And I; still too ignorant to the wounds of this world

And the life we could have had.

 

And did you notice how they judged in the shadows?

 

I wonder, if in your crying-

And I’m sure that you cried-

Did your tears caress my face,

In all that wasteful

Wailing and wrenching,

Baby was born

And little girl grown,

Did the pain erupt

And submerge us-

Did the situation swallow us in,

Stirring the sorrows of a too-soon mother

In the birth of a so-called sin.

 

And did we hear those judging in the shadows?

 

Did you ache afterwards-

Alone, without me,

After the morning crippled all connection,

Did you ache all alone-

In that room without me

After your sacrifice that saved me,

Do you understand the gift that you gave me-

Your body that housed me,

Month after month,

Amid the swelling and stares,

The Jeering and sneers.

 

While all the world judged you from the shadows.

 

Did it change you, at all,

That day, that time

In that place

Of penance and prayers,

In that sacrificial suffering,

In that final goodbye,

In that giving up,

In that letting go-

In the loss that followed too quickly

From our very first hello.

Do you feel me still,

At all, after all, On holidays and birthdays,

When babies cry and mothers run

Do you wonder that happened

To your little baby son?

Do you remember us today

Right now, as we were

So long since our separation,

So deep in separate lives,

In ignorant oblivion

And an opposite direction

Since the hands of this world pulled us apart,

Since the judgment of the world forced us apart

photo-77

The Wonder that was You

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Are we alike-

I ask myself?

Could we ever be linked

Together,

Today, any day,

As Mother and Son?

Can we even claim

Those titles

Within each others eyes

Having spent

All our lives

Apart,

Or rather-

All of mine

Since that cord was cut?

And yet, I wonder

Do ties still bind?

Did it hurt

When we

That were both united

Were parted?

How was it to give life

And then watch it

Being taken away?

Do you still consider me child-

Your child,

Your first child?

Or were there others that followed

Who remained by your side?

Are you mother now

To others-

Do you wrap yourself around them

As you once,

So briefly,

Wrapped yourself

Around me?

Do they know

Of my existence

Or not at all,

As I know not of bother or sister-

Another title I dare not claim.

You should know

That I am happy-

That I’ve known joy,

Can you feel it?

After all, it was you

Who gave me the life

To live it-

The one who grew within you,

Who has developed without you,

Who has walked onwards-

SInce birth,

Though ever increasingly

Away from you,

Who has spoken

Often of you

But never directly to you,

Who grew to know love,

In part,

Because of a single decision

You made.

When I see you now-

Deep in my mind-

It is far from the fantasies I once

Envisioned you in.

You are more balanced

In realism, today

Than the childhood dreams

Of Queen in a tower

Or Star on the stage.

That I live-

It is due to your sacrifice,

Those 9 months-

A lifetime to the child that you were-

A child carrying

A child within,

But still,

You gave me time-

Body and soul,

You gave me the chance

With spirit and pride

As you waded through whispers

And rose above rumors.

I’ve had a mother-

Since we parted,

Since leaving the comforts

Of your swollen belly-

A mother who moulded me,

Minded me,

And moved me

With a thousand remembrances

Of your gift to her.

A woman who knew the sacrifice you had made,

Who’d cried the same tears you shed,

A woman who made me grateful

For the Wonder that was You.

photo-42

Adapted to Adoption

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

 

Removed from you,

I hear your words more clearly.

You failed to understand me,

You neglected to comprehend my lack of questions

For the one from whose tribulations I was born.

What understanding could I have of myself-

When I failed to understand who I am?

And yet- my love removed- see this:

See the woman-

still wet from birth-

Look upon me with swollen eyes

And say goodbye.

See this woman embrace her child-

For all too short one silent moment-

And say goodbye.

Do I feel her pain today-

Or was there any there at all?

What does she think of me today-

Or does she think of me at all?

What right do I have to invade her life

To awaken her present to the wounds of her past?

Hers was the choice-

not mine.

Hers was the loss-

not mine.

Hers was the sacrifice-

not mine-

Not me.

So do not question me when I do not question myself.

Oft’ times I shall wonder but ne’r shall I intrude.

Old wounds have healed and in my hand the knife shall not turn.

I was embraced by others

While she said her goodbyes.

I have been loved by others

Since she relinquished her ties.

You make me laugh as I sit here alone,

You make me wonder-

Could you ever understand who I am?

—

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly