Poems for My Motherline by Carolyn Lee Boyd

November is a time when the veil is thin between the worlds of the living and the dead. As I slip into the magic of this time of year, I think about my motherline: my mother, my mother’s mother, my mother’s mother’s mother, and so on down myriad generations to the beginning of humanity. I am lucky that I am able to trace my motherline back to 15th century England and discover some of the stories of these women whose labor and sacrifice gave me life. These three poems are some of the thoughts turned into poetry that I have had about my motherline over the years. They are chronological, beginning with my experience of being at my mother’s bedside as she died. Next is an ode to the generations of my motherline who migrated over and over again, seeking homes where they could find well being and peace for themselves and their children (while acknowledging in this note that, with each migration, they displaced people already living there, destroying their well being and peace). Finally, a poem about our generation’s place between those who lived before us and those who will live after us and what we have to offer each other. May we all gaze through the thin veil at one another, no matter which generation we are, with compassion and love..

Samhain: A Poetic Ritual at My Mother’s Graveside

At this moment of gathering death’s blessings
into the breast that succored me;
As your eyes stare into the Mother’s Mystery
where I cannot follow;
Remember how my solid hands caressed your face
Though the Mother of All in her tenderness smoothed the wrinkles

I shovel the skin of our Mother onto your  box
Embracing you with Her
I alone among the mourners rejoice
Knowing that my salt water tears will
gestate the sacred space of rebirth
Just as you carried me into my holy body
I rise up chanting, circling
conjuring one moment of Mother communion
to last my lifetime.

The Mystery of two Mothers become One
Come forth from the stone
Let me hear your wisdom each morning in the wind tonings
of the oak outside my bedroom window
Let me honor you each evening as the sky bleeds then deepens to
the unknowable well of endings and beginnings
I rise up chanting, circling
conjuring a lifetime of Mother communion
to last a moment.

Sunrise on the Mountain

Newest child,
you were born last night,
with help from no one but me.
For we are far too high on the mountain
for granny women to arrive in time.

You are the youngest of a long line of family
who came from England to Maryland to
North Carolina to Georgia to Alabama.
Each generation always hoping in vain
to be able to say to the next generation,

“You will always have a cabin to live in.
You will always have food on the table.
You and your children and grandchildren will live long lives.
You will always live in peace.”

Newest child,
born last night
with help from no one but me,
so it has been forever, for life is uncertain
and my first hope is to hold you in my arms
for your first birthday (I have buried so many others).
Beyond that, I cannot promise you that,

“You will always have a cabin to live in.
You will always have food on the table.
You and your children and grandchildren will live long lives.
You will always live in peace.”

But I can give you this moment of quiet before the dawn
And an ancient lullaby to remind you
Of your first morning with the stars and the Earth and the sun.
They are all you or anyone will ever truly have.
Always remember their loving sound when all around you is cacophony.
And that this world that greets you is magnificent.

An earlier version first published in Return to Mago E-Magazine, January 8, 2021

The Well of Remembrance

Come to the Well of Remembrance
Here have women sacrificed the memories that overflow
In both mourning and joy
In all times and places.

Now it is your turn to pour into it your libations—
A grandmother’s feathery hair
A daughter’s pink-painted toenails
Fierce years of labor wasted and
Angry seconds of agony pain.

The Well is constructed of millennia of
Hands held around sacred groves, quilting bees,
birthing stools, and teal Formica kitchen tables.
It can hold all you offer to it.

Now it is your turn to take from it what you need—
All the water that has flowed from women’s
Eyes, mouths, wombs
Has saturated to the Earth’s bones,
Has seethed next to our planet’s molten core,
Has evaporated and risen, then fallen again into
Your cupped hands as cool rain.

Taste one tear from each of your ancestresses.
It is their wish that you drink deeply and
be as mighty as all their memories
distilled into one swallow.

Originally published in the We’Moon Calendar, 2004.

Photo Credit:

Fall Altar, (c) 2026 by Carolyn Lee Boyd