2 poems by James Diaz : “Mother-poem” & “the Weight of What You Carry”

Mother-Poem

It's Mother's Day
again, because how lucky we are
some of us,
that when it reappears on the calendar
there is someone
to reach out to

not that it's so simple
a lot of therapy
in the intervening years
a lot of sifting through ashes
for intact pieces of bone
in order to pick up a phone
and call home.
we learn the art of water
going over or around hard stone.

we have written many new geologies of our mothers
but those maps were drawn up years ago
we've since found that forgiveness is what comes
from acceptance and that acceptance is what comes
from the way things are

we would have wished for better, safer memories
no matter how bad it was
there was love, I think
without trying to overdo it
it's just that some things are always what they are
and I can accept that or I can dig myself a hole
trying to fix someone else's bad weather

but today I called my mother
and told her I loved her
and I make mention of an old friend of hers
who is in a lot of pain and very  lost
and then she goes on for awhile about an -
old resentment between them
and I think: how beautiful that I can't just let my mom  -
be this way
and understand how hard it is for her to be otherwise
and not drown in her litany of lamentations

she has probably not long
and I know that I will miss even this one day
the simple song of a stone I could not reshape with my own water
the sound of her voice haunted by time
but she is mine
and I can finally say this now
with no hesitation in my body
I love her
and I just needed to call home
to remind her of that.

The Weight of What You Carry

Let me fall
I think & think
so hard the moment
gives way
to mirror
& where it hurts
is somehow where it sings
also this:
I belong
right where I am
sometimes
caught
boulder to boulder
and the sky is plenty deep
and far away
I think I know you, traveler
have seen your face
before
be brave, someone say it, please
be brave and here
and wait for it
because things come through the waiting
blessed little hits of light
there is always a thing left undone
until you just do it
just do it, traveler.


Bio: James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) and All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) as well as the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their work has appeared in Line Rider Press, Resurrection Mag, Negative Capability Press and As It Ought To Be. They have never believed in anything as strongly as they do the power of poetry to help heal a shattered life.

An Interview with James Diaz of Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine.