Sigrun Susan Lane
When Mother Took Her Hair Down
When Mother took her hair down in order to wash it, we gathered round to see it fall nearly to her knees-- the strangeness of it. She was an ancient sorceress, her hair fell in wondrous waves. We imagined what could live there in the dark curtains, small animals, fairies perhaps, ladders for huldufolk who built homes in her tresses. We played peek-boo through its drapery until she shooed us, so she could wash it. Then she sat before the fireplace to let it dry, bent forward so it cascaded. We could see the fire through it as she brushed. We huddled close to her feet for warmth. She brushed and brushed. We asked to help, but our small hands did not have the strength to handle its thickness, its body. Then she gathered it up and braided it in that funny way of hers. She held a strand in her mouth, fixed two thick braids then wound them round in the style of her Icelandic mother. She looked old fashioned and regal, like a visitor from a faraway country where nature is cruel and a woman is prized for the hair on her head. Umma’s Brown Bread All the elements are here-- earth, wind, air and fire. From the oven the loaves come brick-shaped and heavy. The first slices coated with butter, we eat by the warm wood stove, our mouths full of grain. No talking. We negotiate coarse lumps, grind them with our teeth. We can only chew and chew and chew the dark substance, tasting of earth, rye, wheat’s long golden grasses, roots burrowed in darkness, soil and rain. My grandmothers down through generations baked this bread. They taught me this food can save your life. Their hands kneaded the moist dough, loaves for those that dragged themselves a thousand winters across frozen landscapes inside their own bodies. This aching hunger. You will be lonely, This is the hardest bread, but it will keep you alive. Hard Sugar Hard sugar cubes gripped between their front teeth, three grey haired women pour hot English tea to a saucer, sip the brew with noisy gusto, suck the sweetness through. In the kitchen’s steamy warmth they grin, savor this ritual impropriety. I sip my tea from a cup. When they sailed from Reykjavik for Halifax on the S.S.Cameons-- it meant six weeks in airless steerage, six week of sea sickness. They left behind the old ways, where serving girls, curtseyed before the gentry in their drawing rooms. They backed out of parlors, just so. Aunt Briet leaps to her feet mimics the posture-- her back, her head bent impossibly low, she bows out of room, and out the door. They fall about laughing, their bitter laughter sweetened only by the hard sugar in their teeth. Sigrun Susan Lane lives in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of two chapbooks, Little Bones and SALT, which won the Josephine Miles award for excellence in 2020. Her poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Malahat Review, Seattle Review, and many other national and international journals. She has won awards for poetry from the Seattle Arts Commission and the King County Arts Commission. |