“When a Mother dies, the children sleep on a leaf” (WC)

 

(Wendy Cabell, Bright Week 2025. Image is connected with Bright Friday's theme of the Life-Giving Fountain of the Most Holy Theotokos, from here.)

“When a Mother dies, the children sleep on a leaf”

(complied/adapted from Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon*)

When you lose your Mother, you lose the roof over your head.

You lose the rice in your bowl.

What single seed from your old life 

will help you sow a new one? 

You will know, as you roll out your moments 

like you roll out your slow noodles —

      

                        one by one, 

                                     deliberately, 

                                                      and with love.

Follow your puppy sense. It knows that time equals love, 

and love equals deliciousness.

Put your trust in God, and in each other, not in gold. 

Play the role of a defeated subject when necessary.

Remain undefeated in the important ways wherever possible.

These ingredients for Mom’s Silken Rebellion, you will need them --

But you are ready.

You have her recipes.

*Compiled/adapted from Chantha Nguon, Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes. This piece is a found poem crafted with words and phrases found in this book and used in a new way.