Mary Shaw

03/06/2017

nothing more than this, racing, through the insides of arteries, veins, intestines, which are somehow at the same time related to clay, to the warm reddish color that you see when you close your lids and the sun is still shining on you outside.
       i was in that mode, close up and comfortable with my nose right up to the flesh,

the material that makes us go on living,

and i was fine with that, willing to see whatever the substrata of what's within me or outside me,

in short, earth,

wanted to reveal to my passive, resting eyes.
      but things got a little harrowing when this material began taking on shape, when a face became molded within the clay that was overlaying my eyes, and its features revealed themselves to be related to mine, becoming, for certain, the eyes, nose and mouth of lise.
       i was there at that moment when those features were

given to fire,

given to the universe, to rise above whatever she had left behind.
     but here they were taking shape again and in something that was bound to be more permanent, evoking not an image of my mother, but her essence, or rather her foundational substance. the lines that were meant once and for all to be her face were taking form in something lasting,

melding your heart into stone.

Mary Shaw est professeure de littérature française des dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles à l'Université de Rutgers (New Jersey). Outre ses travaux universitaires, elle a publié deux livres pour enfants ainsi qu'un recueil de poésie intitulé Album Without Pictures (Halifax, N. S., Editions VVV, 2008).