The Raincoat by Ada Limón
Greeting Stewards,
In our forums and work of narrative wellness, we do close readings of poems and writing. One piece of writing we looked at in our 2022 forum was a poem from the poet Ada Limón. Today we would like to share another poem from her, in celebration of all forms of mothering from all who nurture or are nurtured.
When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.
Hopefully you took away something from this poem and enjoyed it as much as we did!
On another note, we have also set dates for our third forum series, “Radical Hope.” The dates are: June 13, July 11, August 8, September 12, October 10 and November 14 from 6pm to 8pm via Zoom. For more information and to register, check out our Forum Page!
Warmly,
Asheanna