Anne Carson — Elegies for Her Mother
🌹 🌹Anne Carson — Elegies for Her Mother
1. Chains of Sleep
How can sleep reach me while she —
is scissored from me by miles and miles
I feel the wide breath as it fans
her heaving surfaces
scars following scars
and all the ties
end in a single rattle.
Here we go, Mother, into an ocean without ships
Have mercy on us, have mercy on the ocean, here we go.
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2. Sunday
In a heavy gray dusk
my washed cloth flutters.
At dinner time,
the colder winds leave these crowds a little.
The kitchen light leaks out
and the small spongy evening riddles begin to open.
It's time to call my mother.
I'll let it ring.
The sixth ring
the seventh
the eighth
she lifts the receiver.
I wait.
Were the rats running recklessly, beneath the hollow distances?
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3. No Exit Now
In the struggle of breaths that settles against death, another sleep is granted.
We accepted an offer on the house.
Where is what remained of what remained?
In silence (there) leaves and windows on waiting.
Our empty clothesline cuts the descending night.
And makes of the celestial light a mourning cloak for their elegy.
The calls of angels and ruins rise..
while their flow continues through our closed gates.
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4. Nothing to Be Done
Your glassy winds blow on the silent coast
and dance the rose
let us look closely
before the great snow falls
before the emptiness of night flows over us
from our lanterns emerge
shapes of old companions
followed by a moment of cold silence.
What did the knife peel away in that hour?
The buoys drowned.
And what was our home was stormed.
Nothing to be done but row.
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5. Lines
While I talk to my mother, I arrange things.
I prop the books beside the phone.
I put the paper clips in a ceramic dish.
Eraser crumbs scattered on the desk.
She lengthens her talk of death.
So I move the paper clips to the other direction.
From the window view, snow was falling in straight lines.
I was describing to my dear mother what I had eaten for lunch.
The lines are falling fast now.
Fate has placed its weights at the endings (to hurry us).
I want to tell her of God's sign of mercy.
But she doesn't let me.. she says she won't pay my bill.
Miracles pass us by.
The paper clips are arranged forever.
Have mercy on us, O God!
The daughter says, gently:
How long will we feel this burning?
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6. That Power
That power, it is my mother:
I extract it.
Hammered, bound, darkened, cracked
weeping, sweeping, flung into its gasps.
A striking power, striking the nose of death.
It pulls and blocks. It forms and attacks.
Like a bloodless knife that sharpens bone.
That power, it is my mother,
has ended.
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7. Our Wealth
In a house at dusk, the mother's last lesson stirs
west winds that close all the deals.
Take a look at the windows at night, you'll see people standing.
We were always like this, we had excuses that kept us inside.
Until the day came when we cut the fruit (and the tree)
and now we are outside.
That was our debt we paid.
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8. In Some Afternoons She Doesn't Answer the Phone
It is February, snow prevails. And one notices the varying degrees of snow.
Snow dyed in colors — blue, white, brown, gray, silver.
Some snow contains within it pebbles or shadows.
And some is thin as a wing, impossible to stand on.
And when the wind stands on it, it thins it, makes it scattered.
These scattered pieces, they are our hoped-for desires.
So the young cannot stand on it.
Nor can the single letter, nor even its edge.
Blind burns, they are all that come through that world.
It is February, snow prevails. And one notices the varying degrees of snow.
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— Anne Carson
Nobel Prize in Literature 2026
(Texts written by the poet in mourning for her mother)
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🌹 Anne Carson — 🌹
