This week’s featured poem: “My Mother’s Defiance on Bloomsday” by Mary O’Donnell
A daughter ponders if her aging mother’s resistance to accepting her care isn’t a rejection of life, but rather an affirmation.
Carol Rumens
Mon 14 Jun 2021 12.00 BST
182
My Mother’s Defiance on Bloomsday
It’s not a simple task, not at all simple,
to guide an elderly woman to the shower
on Bloomsday, while the world
and Molly echoes yes, yes, yes,
and she persists with no, no, no,
because what’s remaining of her existence
relies on the freedom of No.
How reminiscent of Joyce
for her to oppose the sanitized conscience
of familial care, your desire
to remedy her imperfections and smells,
shampoo her hair and brush her teeth,
tend to her toes when all she desires
is to drift on the lily pad of her own
green bedspread, with dozing Molly
entangled in her snow-white hair.
Now, dreams envelop her
more than discussions of showers or meals,
the fluid memories
rise and caress her skin
right where the mattress soothes
her spine and bones
in that room with yellow walls.
“Hello, my darling,” she addresses
his photograph, blowing kisses
toward the weathered frame.
To her, then,
the logic of affection,
to her, the logic of No,
her untamed tongue.
Mary O’Donnell’s latest collection, “Massacre of the Birds,” presents a broad feminist perspective, addressing various environmental issues, chronicling the commonplace experiences of sexual harassment (#MeToo, 12 Remembered Scenes and a Line), and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, celebrating the joys of inhabiting a woman’s body (The Men I once Knew).
A series of loosely connected poems, narrated by a daughter caring for her widowed mother, occupies an intriguing position on this spectrum. Traditionally, caregiving responsibilities within a family often fall on women, without compensation or acknowledgment. While these poems could have protested against this exploitation, they turned out to be more of a celebration than a protest. They are love poems of sorts.
“My Mother’s Defiance on Bloomsday” begins by highlighting the challenges faced by the caregiver: “It’s not a simple task, not at all simple…” The physical exertion is compounded by the patient’s resistance, and the day of celebration, Bloomsday, June 16, symbolizes a celebration of female sexuality, “while the world / and Molly echo yes, yes, yes,” appears to have been overshadowed. The mother’s repeated “No” negates more than just Molly’s affirmations. However, as the poem unfolds, it becomes apparent that the “No” serves a different purpose altogether, rejecting the mundane routines of physical care for what the body, even in its aged and frail state, truly craves.
The closing soliloquy in James Joyce’s “Ulysses” is a journey through Molly Bloom’s consciousness, ultimately leading her from her current infidelity to her husband, Leopold, to memories of their initial union, suggesting that their marriage will be revitalized. Molly’s final recollections resemble “the fluid memories” experienced by the mother in O’Donnell’s poem:
O’Donnell utilizes an intriguing verb when describing the caregiver’s task (and necessity) to “remedy” the mother’s “imperfections and smells.” While the primary meaning of “remedy” here is to “correct,” the secondary meaning lingers. The woman subjected to these washing and changing routines is also being “fixed” in her decline. The caregiver herself opposes this reduction. She quickly transitions to a scene of joy, restoring the mother’s comfortable repose on the green bedspread in a room with yellow walls. These are the colors of nature and sunlight. The elderly woman herself is rejuvenated, transformed into “dozing Molly / entangled in her snow-white hair.”
The mother has previously been portrayed as a woman who enjoyed a marriage so fulfilling and robust that it seemed to exclude her offspring. In “My Mother’s Defiance on Bloomsday,” we witness the paradoxical isolation of the caregiving daughter. While the initial focus of the poem is on the mother’s resolute defiance of care, the more poignant moment occurs in the final line of the twelfth couplet when, back in bed, she calls out to her husband’s photograph, “Hello, my darling,” and sends kisses toward the “weathered frame.” Now, we feel the renewed impact of the earlier notion of “Joycean” rebellion against “the sanitized conscience / of familial care.” If there is any hint of anger or irony in adopting the mother’s perspective in those earlier couplets, it is tempered by admiration. The term “Joycean” can only be interpreted as praise.
The restrained depictions of washing and grooming the mother are minimal intrusions into the bodily vulnerability that neither invade privacy nor diminish dignity. The poem is profoundly feminist in its recognition of the mother’s full humanity and womanhood. She possesses a capacity for sensual pleasure as well as rebellion; the aging body is permitted its eroticism. Perhaps she is not merely a variation of Molly but a feminine Ulysses, who, after a lengthy voyage, is finally nearing home.