Review on, "The woman Speaks to the man who has Employed her Son", By Lorna Goodison
The Woman Speaks to the man who has Employed her son
Her son was first known to her as a sense of unease, a need to cry for little reasons and a metallic tide rising in her mouth each morning. Such signs made her know that she was not alone in her body. She carried him full term tight up under her heart. She carried him like the poor carry hope, hope you get a break or a visa, hope one child go through and remember you. He had no father. The man she made him with had more like him, he was fair-minded he treated all his children with equal and unbiased indifference. She raised him twice, once as mother then as father, set no ceiling on what he could be doctor earth healer, pilot take wings. But now he tells her is working for you, that you value him so much you give him one whole sub machine gun for him alone. He says you are like a father to him she is wondering what kind of father would give a son hot and exploding death, when he asks him for bread. She went downtown and bought three and one-third yard of black cloth and a deep crowned and veiled hat for the day he draw his bloody salary. She has no power over you and this at the level of earth, what she has are prayers and a mother's tears and at knee city she uses them. She says psalms for him she reads psalms for you she weeps for his soul her eye water covers you. She is throwing a partner with Judas Iscariot's mother the thief on the left hand side of the cross, his mother is the banker, her draw though is first and last for she still throwing two hands as mother and father. She is prepared, she is done. Absalom.
REVIEW
The poem "The woman speaks to the man who has employed her son", A singles mothers unconditional love for her on is tested. This woman who served as both mother and father and making considerable sacrifices to raise her child on her own to give him the best life and encouraging and setting no limitations for him to live a better life.
The first stanza goes through how "she carried him full term, tight under her heart ", from the moment her son was known to her, he held a special place in her heart. Her sons father was non existent in his life so she raised him the best she could as both mother and father encouraging and giving him hope to grow up to move away from how she raise him but to be more successful and and greater that she could have ever been in her life. This mother tried her best to give her child a future and then a man in her sons life sets him up for " a hot and exploding death when he asks him for bread” by employing him. That single mother wonders where she went wrong for her son to yearn for a father figure who would value him enough to give him a gun, but still she hopes he would come to his senses and end his employment.
“She has no power over you and this at the level of earth”, She cannot force her son to take a different path or force the man to leave her son alone but she still doesn't accept that that would be her sons lifestyle. All she can do is pray for her son and prays against the man so he will be dismissed by her son from their lives, Then the poet warns of the dangers of causing a mother so much pain, “She says psalms for him she reads psalms for you she weeps for his soul her eye water covers you.” The one who makes a mother cry will face the consequences, In the last stanza of the poem Lorna Goodison compares this woman to the mother of Jesus; traitor Judas Iscariot, before giving up and letting nature run its course with her son and his employer in the hand of God.
