Sleeping On Mother's Lap Quotes

A mother's lap is the abode where you weep, sleep and find peace; no fear can intrude, all worries are removed, and love is absolute and supreme.

And the way I loved her was like nothing else. This, I decided, was the love all other loves were measured against. They say girls look to marry their fathers, but I decided after having Maxie that we all, every one of us, were looking to marry our mothers. Sitting on the sofa with her wrapped in a soft blanket in my arms, I’d think, ‘This baby has it so good.’ It just seemed that the love I’d been searching and hoping for all my life was what Maxie already had right now: two big arms and a lap, a warm blanket, the background music of a heartbeat and a pair of lungs, food at a moment’s notice, sleep at every urge, and a person totally obsessed with her, whose every moment—waking or otherwise—was totally devoted to her comfort and care. Was that so much to ask for?

[excerpt] The usual I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A taste. I say top shelf. Straight up. A shot. A sip. A nip. I say another round. I say brace yourself. Lift a few. Hoist a few. Work the elbow. Bottoms up. Belly up. Set ‘em up. What’ll it be. Name your poison. I say same again. I say all around. I say my good man. I say my drinking buddy. I say git that in ya. Then a quick one. Then a nightcap. Then throw one back. Then knock one down. Fast & furious I say. Could savage a drink I say. Chug. Chug-a-lug. Gulp. Sauce. Mother’s milk. Everclear. Moonshine. White lightning. Firewater. Hootch. Relief. Now you’re talking I say. Live a little I say. Drain it I say. Kill it I say. Feeling it I say. Wobbly. Breakfast of champions I say. I say candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. I say Houston, we have a drinking problem. I say the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. I say god only knows what I’d be without you. I say thirsty. I say parched. I say wet my whistle. Dying of thirst. Lap it up. Hook me up. Watering hole. Knock a few back. Pound a few down. My office. Out with the boys I say. Unwind I say. Nurse one I say. Apply myself I say. Toasted. Glow. A cold one a tall one a frosty I say. One for the road I say. Two-fisted I say. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink I say. Drink any man under the table I say. Then a binge then a spree then a jag then a bout. Coming home on all fours. Could use a drink I say. A shot of confidence I say. Steady my nerves I say. Drown my sorrows. I say kill for a drink. I say keep ‘em comin’. I say a stiff one. Drink deep drink hard hit the bottle. Two sheets to the wind then. Knackered then. Under the influence then. Half in the bag then. Out of my skull I say. Liquored up. Rip-roaring. Slammed. Fucking jacked. The booze talking. The room spinning. Feeling no pain. Buzzed. Giddy. Silly. Impaired. Intoxicated. Stewed. Juiced. Plotzed. Inebriated. Laminated. Swimming. Elated. Exalted. Debauched. Rock on. Drunk on. Bring it on. Pissed. Then bleary. Then bloodshot. Glassy-eyed. Red-nosed. Dizzy then. Groggy. On a bender I say. On a spree. I say off the wagon. I say on a slip. I say the drink. I say the bottle. I say drinkie-poo. A drink a drunk a drunkard. Swill. Swig. Shitfaced. Fucked up. Stupefied. Incapacitated. Raging. Seeing double. Shitty. Take the edge off I say. That’s better I say. Loaded I say. Wasted. Off my ass. Befuddled. Reeling. Tanked. Punch-drunk. Mean drunk. Maintenance drunk. Sloppy drunk happy drunk weepy drunk blind drunk dead drunk. Serious drinker. Hard drinker. Lush. Drink like a fish. Boozer. Booze hound. Alkie. Sponge. Then muddled. Then woozy. Then clouded. What day is it? Do you know me? Have you seen me? When did I start? Did I ever stop? Slurring. Reeling. Staggering. Overserved they say. Drunk as a skunk they say. Falling down drunk. Crawling down drunk. Drunk & disorderly. I say high tolerance. I say high capacity. They say protective custody. Blitzed. Shattered. Zonked. Annihilated. Blotto. Smashed. Soaked. Screwed. Pickled. Bombed. Stiff. Frazzled. Blasted. Plastered. Hammered. Tore up. Ripped up. Destroyed. Whittled. Plowed. Overcome. Overtaken. Comatose. Dead to the world. The old K.O. The horrors I say. The heebie-jeebies I say. The beast I say. The dt’s. B’jesus & pink elephants. A mindbender. Hittin’ it kinda hard they say. Go easy they say. Last call they say. Quitting time they say. They say shut off. They say dry out. Pass out. Lights out. Blackout. The bottom. The walking wounded. Cross-eyed & painless. Gone to the world. Gone. Gonzo. Wrecked. Sleep it off. Wake up on the floor. End up in the gutter. Off the stuff. Dry. Dry heaves. Gag. White knuckle. Lightweight I say. Hair of the dog I say. Eye-opener I say. A drop I say. A slug. A taste. A swallow. Down the hatch I say. I wouldn’t say no I say. I say whatever he’s having. I say next one’s on me. I say bottoms up. Put it on my tab. I say one more. I say same again

A little girl lay flung back in her mother’s lap as though sleep had struck her with a blow.

I am not, I regret to say, a discreet and fetching sleeper. Most people when they nod off look as if they could do with a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention. I sleep as if injected with a powerful experimental muscle relaxant. My legs fall open in a grotesque come-hither manner; my knuckles brush the floor. Whatever is inside—tongue, uvula, moist bubbles of intestinal air—decides to leak out. From time to time, like one of those nodding-duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a quart or so of viscous drool onto my lap, then falls back to begin loading again with a noise like a toilet cistern filling. And I snore, hugely and helplessly, like a cartoon character, with rubbery flapping lips and prolonged steam-valve exhalations. For long periods I grow unnaturally still, in a way that inclines onlookers to exchange glances and lean forward in concern, then dramatically I stiffen and, after a tantalizing pause, begin to bounce and jostle in a series of whole-body spasms of the sort that bring to mind an electric chair when the switch is thrown. Then I shriek once or twice in a piercing and effeminate manner and wake up to find that all motion within five hundred feet has stopped and all children under eight are clutching their mothers’ hems. It is a terrible burden to bear.

And at night the river flows, it bears pale stars on the holy water, some sink like veils, some show like fish, the great moon that once was rose now high like a blazing milk flails its white reflection vertical and deep in the dark surgey mass wall river's grinding bed push. As in a sad dream, under the streetlamp, by pocky unpaved holes in dirt, the father James Cassidy comes home with lunchpail and lantern, limping, redfaced, and turns in for supper and sleep. Now a door slams. The kids have rushed out for the last play, the mothers are planning and slamming in kitchens, you can hear it out in swish leaf orchards, on popcorn swings, in the million-foliaged sweet wafted night of sighs, songs, shushes. A thousand things up and down the street, deep, lovely, dangerous, aureating, breathing, throbbing like stars; a whistle, a faint yell; the flow of Lowell over rooftops beyond; the bark on the river, the wild goose of the night yakking, ducking in the sand and sparkle; the ululating lap and purl and lovely mystery on the shore, dark, always dark the river's cunning unseen lips, murmuring kisses, eating night, stealing sand, sneaky. 'Mag-gie!' the kids are calling under the railroad bridge where they've been swimming. The freight train still rumbles over a hundred cars long, the engine threw the flare on little white bathers, little Picasso horses of the night as dense and tragic in the gloom comes my soul looking for what was there that disappeared and left, lost, down a path--the gloom of love. Maggie, the girl I loved.

You know something? The oddest picture came into my mind just then. I saw Dadums in the chair in the hospital waiting room, cradling my mother’s sleeping head on his lap, raising his finger to his lips so no one would disturb her. And. I heard Violet’s voice in my ears, as kind and clean as water: He loved me as much as it was possible for him to love another person. I thought, out of the blue, maybe this isn’t so hard after all. Maybe

Natalie’s mother made her way to the podium, clutching a piece of paper. Her face was wet, but her voice was solid when she began speaking. “This is a letter to Natalie, my only daughter.” She took a shaky breath and the words streamed out. “Natalie, you were my dearest girl. I can’t believe you have been taken from us. Never again will I sing you to sleep or tickle your back with my fingers. Never again will your brother get to twirl your pigtails, or your father hold you on his lap. Your father will not walk you down the aisle. Your brother will never be an uncle. We will miss you at our Sunday dinners and our summer vacations. We will miss your laughter. We will miss your tears. Mostly, my dear daughter, we will miss you. We love you, Natalie.

Wilderness by Carl Sandburg There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross. There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis. There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot’s hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so. There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness. O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

To the memory of my parents My Mother Sea waves, golden sand, pilgrims' faith, Rameswaram Mosque Street, all merge into one, My Mother! You come to me like heaven's caring arms. I remember the war days when life was challenge and toil— Miles to walk, hours before sunrise, Walking to take lessons from the saintly teacher near the temple. Again miles to the Arab teaching school, Climb sandy hills to Railway Station Road, Collect, distribute newspapers to temple city citizens, Few hours after sunrise, going to school. Evening, business time before study at night. All this pain of a young boy, My Mother you transformed into pious strength With kneeling and bowing five times For the Grace of the Almighty only, My Mother. Your strong piety is your children's strength, You always shared your best with whoever needed the most, You always gave, and gave with faith in Him. I still remember the day when I was ten, Sleeping on your lap to the envy of my elder brothers and sisters It was full moon night, my world only you knew Mother! My Mother! When at midnight I woke with tears falling on my knee You knew the pain of your child, My Mother. Your caring hands, tenderly removing the pain Your love, your care, your faith gave me strength To face the world without fear and with His strength. We will meet again on the great Judgement Day, My Mother! APJ Abdul Kalam

The other thing preferable about the weekday services is that no one is there against his will. That’s another distraction on Sundays. Who hasn’t suffered the experience of having an entire family seated in the pew in front of you, the children at war with each other and sandwiched between the mother and father who are forcing them to go to church? An aura of stale arguments almost visibly clings to the hasty clothing of the children. “This is the one morning I can sleep in!” the daughter’s linty sweater says. “I get so bored!” says the upturned collar of the son’s suit jacket. Indeed, the children imprisoned between their parents move constantly and restlessly in the pew; they are so crazy with self-pity, they seem ready to scream. The stern-looking father who occupies the aisle seat has his attention interrupted by fits of vacancy—an expression so perfectly empty accompanies his sternness and his concentration that I think I glimpse an underlying truth to the man’s churchgoing: that he is doing it only for the children, in the manner that some men with much vacancy of expression are committed to a marriage. When the children are old enough to decide about church for themselves, this man will stay home on Sundays. The frazzled mother, who is the lesser piece of bread to this family sandwich—and who is holding down that part of the pew from which the most unflattering view of the preacher in the pulpit is possible (directly under the preacher’s jowls)—is trying to keep her hand off her daughter’s lap. If she smooths out her daughter’s skirt only one more time, both of them know that the daughter will start to cry. The son takes from his suit jacket pocket a tiny, purple truck; the father snatches this away—with considerable bending and crushing of the boy’s fingers in the process. “Just one more obnoxious bit of behavior from you,” the father whispers harshly, “and you will be grounded—for the rest of the day.” “The whole rest of the day?” the boy says, incredulous. The apparent impossibility of sustaining unobnoxious behavior for even part of the day weighs heavily on the lad, and overwhelms him with a claustrophobia as impenetrable as the claustrophobia of church itself. The daughter has begun to cry. “Why is she crying?” the boy asks his father, who doesn’t answer. “Are you having your period?” the boy asks his sister, and the mother leans across the daughter’s lap and pinches the son’s thigh—a prolonged, twisting sort of pinch. Now he is crying, too. Time to pray! The kneeling pads flop down, the family flops forward. The son manages the old hymnal trick; he slides a hymnal along the pew, placing it where his sister will sit when she’s through praying. “Just one more thing,” the father mutters in his prayers. But how can you pray, thinking about the daughter’s period? She looks old enough to be having her period, and young enough for it to be the first time. Should you move the hymnal before she’s through praying and sits on it? Should you pick up the hymnal and bash the boy with it? But the father is the one you’d like to hit; and you’d like to pinch the mother’s thigh, exactly as she pinched her son. How can you pray?

Thy Justice seems; yet to say truth, too late, I thus contest; then should have been refusd Those terms whatever, when they were propos’d: Thou didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good, Then cavil the conditions? and though God Made thee without thy leave, what if thy Son Prove disobedient, and reprov’d, retort, Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not: Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee That proud excuse? yet him not thy election, But Natural necessity begot. God made thee of choice his own, and of his own To serve him, thy reward was of his grace, Thy punishment then justly is at his Will. Be it so, for I submit, his doom is fair, That dust I am, and shall to dust returne: O welcom hour whenever! why delayes His hand to execute what his Decree Fixd on this day? why do I overlive, Why am I mockt with death, and length’nd out To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet Mortalitie my sentence, and be Earth Insensible, how glad would lay me down As in my Mothers lap? there I should rest And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more Would Thunder in my ears, no fear of worse To mee and to my ofspring would torment me With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt Pursues me still, least all I cannot die, Least that pure breath of Life, the Spirit of Man Which God inspir’d, cannot together perish With this corporeal Clod; then in the Grave, Or in some other dismal place, who knows But I shall die a living Death? O thought Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath Of Life that sinn’d; what dies but what had life And sin? the Bodie properly hath neither. All of me then shall die: let this appease The doubt, since humane reach no further knows. For though the Lord of all be infinite, Is his wrauth also? be it, man is not so, But mortal doom’d. How can he exercise Wrath without end on Man whom Death must end? Can he make deathless Death? that were to make Strange contradiction, which to God himself Impossible is held, as Argument Of weakness, not of Power. Will he, draw out, For angers sake, finite to infinite In punisht man, to satisfie his rigour Satisfi’d never; that were to extend His Sentence beyond dust and Natures Law, By which all Causes else according still To the reception of thir matter act, Not

It is the last evening at home. Everyone is silent. I go to bed early, I seize the pillow, press it against myself and bury my head in it. Who knows if I will ever lie in a feather bed again? Late in the night my mother comes into my room. She thinks I am asleep, and I pretend to be so. To talk, to stay awake with one another, it is too hard. She sits long into the night although she is in pain and often writhes. At last I can bear it no longer, and pretend I have just wakened up. ”Go and sleep, Mother, you will catch cold here.” ”I can sleep enough later,” she says. I sit up. ”I don’t go straight back to the front, mother. I have to do four weeks at the training camp. I may come over from there one Sunday, perhaps.” She is silent. Then she asks gently: ”Are you very much afraid?” ”No Mother.” ”I would like to tell you to be on your guard against the women out in France. They are no good.” Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child–why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang short, boy’s trousers–it is such a little time ago, why is it over? ”Where we are there aren’t any women, Mother,” I say as calmly as I can. ”And be very careful at the front, Paul.” Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are! ”Yes Mother, I will.” ”I will pray for you every day, Paul.” Ah! Mother, Mother! Let us rise up and go out, back through the years, where the burden of all this misery lies on us no more, back to you and me alone, mother! ”Perhaps you can get a job that is not so dangerous.” ”Yes, Mother, perhaps I can get into the cookhouse, that can easily be done.” ”You do it then, and if the others say anything–” ”That won’t worry me, mother–” She sighs. Her face is a white gleam in the darkness. ”Now you must go to sleep, Mother.” She does not reply. I get up and wrap my cover round her shoulders. She supports herself on my arm, she is in pain. And so I take her to her room. I stay with her a little while. ”And you must get well again, Mother, before I come back.” ”Yes, yes, my child.” ”You ought not to send your things to me, Mother. We have plenty to eat out there. You can make much better use of them here.” How destitute she lies there in her bed, she that loves me more than all the world. As I am about to leave, she says hastily: ”I have two pairs of under-pants for you. They are all wool. They will keep you warm. You must not forget to put them in your pack.” Ah! Mother! I know what these under-pants have cost you in waiting, and walking, and begging! Ah! Mother, Mother! how can it be that I must part from you? Who else is there that has any claim on me but you. Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it. ”Good-night, Mother.” ”Good-night, my child.” The room is dark. I hear my mother’s breathing, and the ticking of the clock. Outside the window the wind blows and the chestnut trees rustle. On the landing I stumble over my pack, which lies there already made up because I have to leave early in the morning. I bite into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed with my fists. I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless;–I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. I ought never to have come on leave.

One night he left his tent and rambled around aimlessly in the sleeping camp. He wandered to the enclosure where the captives’ tents stood near the banks of the river Rha. The night was cold, silvery with moonlight, and silent; he could hear the river gently lapping against its banks. It was a sweet, soothing sound like the lullaby his mother used to sing. As he listened a change came into the rhythm of the river’s song—now it was sad, yearning . . . and he could hear words. Someone was singing near by. The melody coiled around his heart and drew him, down the grassy slope, down to the river’s edge he went. The soft grass deadened his footsteps and he saw the singer before she heard him. Leaning against a tree so close to the river that her moonlit figure was reflected in the water, stood one of the captive girls. Bendeguz stood motionless, watching and listening. Her deep sad voice seemed to melt the fierceness around his heart, the restlessness left him, he was at peace. The song came to an end. The girl turned away from the river with a sigh . . . she saw Bendeguz. She made a move as if to run away, then shrank against the tree and faced him defiantly. There was contempt in her eyes and pride in the lift of her head. Bendeguz wanted to say: “Do not be afraid,” but now he could not, for there was no fear in her eyes—just cold, proud contempt. He walked closer, he could have touched her, and still she faced him defiantly. “What is your name?” he asked and his voice was gentle. “Alleeta.” “Alleeta . . .” he repeated slowly. “Alleeta, your eyes are as cold as ice. Do you hate me?” She looked at him for a long time then she turned her head away. “No, not now,” she whispered. “Always I have before, but not now.” She was speaking the language of the Huns, yet it wasn’t the same. To Bendeguz the words she spoke were like her elusive reflection in the water, the same words he knew but subtly different. And suddenly the words of her song rang again in his ears: Lead me westward, White Eagle of the Moon, oh, lead me On silvery rays of the Moon— Westward I long to fly . . . . “Alleeta, where did you learn that song—where did you learn the language of my people?” he asked. She looked at him, surprised. “It is the language of my people and it is a song we all know, the Song of the White Eagle.” “The White Eagle!” exclaimed Bendeguz.

(Amavia's suicide) But if that carelesse heauens (quoth she) despise The doome of iust reuenge, and take delight To see sad PAGEANTS OF MEN'S MISERIES, As bound by them to liue in liues despight, Yet can they not warne death from wretched wight. Come then, come soone, come sweetest death to mee, And take away this LONG LENT LOATHED LIGHT: Sharpe be thy wounds, but sweet the medicines bee, That long captiued soules from wearie thraldome free. But thou, sweet Babe, whom frowning froward fate Hath made sad witnesse of thy fathers fall, Sith heauen thee deignes to hold in liuing state, Long maist thou liue, and better thriue withall, Then to thy lucklesse parents did befall: Liue thou, and to thy mother dead attest, That cleare she dide from blemish criminall; Thy litle hands embrewd in bleeding brest Loe I for pledges leaue. So giue me leaue to rest. With that a deadly shrieke she forth did throw, That through the wood reecchoed againe, And after gaue a grone so deepe and low, That seemd her tender heart was rent in twaine, Or thrild with point of thorough piercing paine; As gentle Hynd, whose sides with cruell steele Through launched, forth her bleeding life does raine, Whiles the sad pang approching she does feele, Brayes out her latest breach, and vp her eyes doth seele. Which when that warriour heard, dismounting straict From his tall steed, he rusht into the thicke, And soone arriued, where that sad pourtraict Of death and dolour lay, halfe dead, halfe quicke, In whose white alabaster brest did sticke A cruell knife, that made a griesly wound, From which forth gusht a streme of gorebloud thick, That all her goodly garments staind around, And into a deepe sanguine dide the grassie ground. Pittifull spectacle of deadly smart, Beside a bubbling fountaine low she lay, Which she increased with her bleeding hart, And the cleane waues widi purple gore did ray; Als in her lap a louely babe did play His cruell sport, in stead of sorrow dew; For in her streaming blood he did embay His litle hands, and tender ioynts embrew; Pitifull spectacle, as euer eye did view. Out of her gored wound the cruell steele He lighdy snatcht, and did the floudgate stop With his faire garment: then gan softly feele Her feeble pulse, to proue if any drop Of liuing bloud yet in her veynes did hop; Which when he felt to moue, he hoped faire To call backe life to her forsaken shop. ... Not one word more she sayd But breaking off, the end for want of breath, And slyding soft, as downe to sleepe her layd, And ended all her woe in quiet death. That seeing good Sir Guyon, could vneath From tears abstaine, for griefe his hart did grate, And from so heauie sight his head did wreath, Accusing fortune, and too cruell fate, Which plunged had faire Ladie in so wretched state. Then turning to his Palmer said, Old syre Behold the image of mortalitie, And feeble nature cloth’d with fleshly tyre, When raging passion with fierce tyrannie Robs reason of her due regalitie, And makes it seruant to her basest part: The strong it weakens with infirmitie, And with bold furie armes the weakest hart; The strong through pleasure soonest falles, the weake through smart.

Galen escorted me all the way to the front door. I looked pleadingly at him before I opened it, and with an understanding nod, he followed me inside. The voices I could hear coming from the parlor quieted, and I could almost feel the curiosity in the air at who had entered. Swallowing hard, I moved into the hallway and into sight. “Shaselle!” Mother cried, standing so abruptly that her sewing slipped from her lap onto the floor. My sisers and brother, all of whom were present, stared at me, faces mixed with shock and elation. “You came back!” Celdrid hopped to his feet, trailing Mother, who had hastened to embrace me. “Where in heaven’s name have you been, girl?” She held me at arm’s length, inspecting me. “What were you thinking, disappearing like that? You had me scared to death.” “She stayed with me,” Galen unexpectedly supplied, and I glanced questioningly at him. Mother stepped around me, and displeasure would have been a charitable description of her emotion. Now I understood Galen’s tactic--he was bringing her anger at my conduct down on him; he was also keeping from her the knowledge that I had been alone on the streets, vulnerable to butchers, the enemy and the cold. “Galen, you had better not be lying to me.” I went over to my siblings, all of us wary of her harsh tone. “I would never lie to you, Lania. You know me better than that.” “I know you well enough.” She was considering him shrewdly. “You kept my daughter at your house for four days and didn’t tell me? You didn’t send her home?” “You and Baelic never sent Steldor and me home when we showed up here,” he said with a shrug and a surreptitious wink for me that did not pass Mother’s notice. He and my cousin had been a bit wild during their teenage years, and had found a place to sleep at our house when they’d been too afraid to face Cannan. Mother shook her head, trying to hide her affection for the young man behind a frown. “You’re fortunate you have a charming smile, Galen.” “That’s why I practice,” he said with a slight bow. “If you’ll excuse me, my wife is holding dinner.

You’re so much smarter than I am, Caleb. So much stronger and so much more persuasive. If I married you, I wouldn’t be myself for very long. I’d soon become the person you want me to be.” He sat back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. “I wouldn’t change you for the world,” he protested quietly. “Yes, you would,” Lily insisted. “You’d make me into a china doll, overseeing tea parties and embroidering samplers and gazing at you in worshipful adoration. And eventually you’d get tired of me, Caleb, and take a mistress.” He glowered at her, as though insulted. “I would never betray you.” “Oh, no? What about when I’m pregnant, Caleb—all fat, with swollen ankles and a chronic case of the weeps. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t turn to another woman for the comforts you so obviously need?” “I’d find you more attractive than ever,” Caleb answered with annoyed certainty. Lily picked up her spoon, then set it down again. Her hands knotted into fists in her lap. “You weren’t faithful to Sandra. Why should I fare any better?” “Because I love you, for one thing. And I explained before—I didn’t sleep with Sandra.” “I might not feel like sleeping with you, either—if I happened to get pregnant, that is. What would you do then, Caleb?” “Wait,” he answered. Then a slow grin spread across his face. “And do my damnedest to seduce you. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty good at that.” Lily flushed and squirmed a little, remembering. There was no denying his assertion: Caleb could practically tumble her onto her back with a look or a touch. The fact tormented her, for she couldn’t discern whether it was because of some special skill on his part or because she was basically a loose woman like her mother. “I’ve noticed,” she admitted. Caleb gazed at her for a long time, then went back to eating his stew.

If she put them to bed and left them, there would be pandemonium. Cecily would not stay in bed at all and romped gaily about the room, and Beth and Mary would begin to argue, starting with a simple remark like ‘Beth, I can’t get to sleep with you sniffing,’ and finishing with a general commotion of crying and quarrelling. So Mother resigned herself to stay with them as they fell asleep, and she sat, with the littlest one snuggled on her lap, in the room dimly glowing with candle-light, softly astir with the breathing and sighing and turning over of children settling for the night.

On the ferry back from Büyükada the setting sun’s soft rays scarcely light the faces of my fellow weary travellers sons joke with their fathers daughters sleep on mothers’ laps friends play faded playing cards with an envelope for the missing jack here a toddler’s hand under his chin like a scholar there a family roars with laughter eating sunflower seeds from a pink plastic bag we breathe the crisp marmara sea together suddenly i loved you despite your carnival of violence i love you Humanity! with all your many ifs and your many thens

The way Bill was the other day, and with what’s happening at the farm I –’ ‘Dad talked to me about that after you left.’ Heather’s voice was sharp. ‘He said you’re imagining things, just like your mother.’ Ellie clenched her hands on her lap as anger surged through her. ‘It’s something to do with the Aboriginal council or the environmental committee, isn’t it?’ It was dark now and Ellie couldn’t see Heather’s expression. Kane reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘What happened the other day?’ ‘Bill warned me off when I asked him some questions.’ ‘Like he said, Ellie, just drop it. It was an accident.’ Heather’s voice was short. There was no more conversation until they got back to the lodge. Ellie pushed opened the door of her apartment. Kane raised his hand and stepped in first and flicked the lights on. ‘It’s okay. All good.’ ‘You can have my room. I’ve got an early start. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’ Ellie frowned as Heather nodded and walked past her into the bedroom. The door closed behind her with a loud click and Kane raised his eyebrows. Ellie crossed the living area and stood by the bedroom door. ‘Something sounded a bit off, didn’t it?’ ‘It did.’ ‘I’m not going to let it go.’ Ellie pushed open the door and sat beside her friend as she lay back on the pillow with her hand over her eyes. ‘What’s going on, Heather? I know there’s something. Why would someone do this to Bill? Has he been threatened?’ Heather’s eyes flew open and she stared at Ellie. ‘What?’ ‘I think I know what’s going on.’ Heather’s face closed. ‘You heard Dad at our place. He’s right. Just stay out of it.’ ‘For fuck’s sake, Heather. Someone tortured him tonight. They cut his finger off. What the hell is

Maggie looked at her mother, who busied herself with shifting sleeping Jay to a more comfortable position in her lap.  She studied Corie Mae’s frown.  What would we have to do to make her brag about us?

sighed with bliss. She’d always known he had beautiful hands and she needed that human touch for healing her frightened heart. ‘I’ll never sleep, but I will have to move. My legs have gone numb under Harley.’ ‘Here. Let me lift him. Would you like to sleep with him tonight in your bed?’ ‘Put him in his own bed and we’ll leave the door open. I’ll hear him if he wants me. I need your arms around me tonight, Iain. He won’t mind me sleeping with you – though he might come in in the morning.’ Iain laughed softly, dropped a tender kiss on her lips and lifted the boy easily out of her lap to carry him up the stairs. Chapter Fifty-two Noni Half an hour later, Noni had showered and was sipping the hot chocolate Iain had insisted she needed. He came back into the room, sat down and slid his arm around her. ‘This wasn’t quite the situation and setting I’d planned, but I do have something to say.’ Noni put down the cup and tried to calm the sudden thumping in her heart. She looked into the face of the man she’d come to love and knew, without a doubt, that she had to stay with him despite the dilemmas they hadn’t resolved. It wasn’t just Harley who’d been heartbroken that he’d left. ‘First of all, I’m sorry for accusing you of knowing Jacinta was planning on staying with you. On Saturday, it took me until about fifty kilometers south of Burra to realize that of course you hadn’t known she planned to stay behind. I think I always knew you’d never stoop to underhanded methods to arrange that change of plan.’ He sighed. ‘It was all Jacinta’s idea, although for the life of me I couldn’t understand why she left telling me until the last minute.’ He grimaced and squeezed her shoulder. ‘I was so disappointed in her lack of loyalty, I blamed you. And I was over the top about it. I’m sorry.’ Noni ran her finger along his jaw. ‘I understand that. Before she went to bed, Jacinta told me she wanted to make sure we still saw each other. That she could see we were good for each other if we could hang in there. She stayed so we would still keep in contact.’ ‘She’s a stubborn young woman.’ ‘Just like her father.’ Noni took a deep breath and hoped the offer was still open. ‘But I can see what she means. I will take you on your terms, Iain. I think we should try to make a life together, and it’s no good Harley and me staying in Burra if our hearts are down in Sydney with you.’ She expelled her breath. There. She’d said it and she meant it. He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently. ‘Ah, Noni. You’re too much for me. Thank you for your typically brave offer, but let me finish. Where was I? Oh, yes. I’m not stubborn, by the way! ‘It only took another five kilometers to realize I didn’t want to leave Burra, either. The challenges of a country practice might be the answer to rejuvenating my interest in obstetrics. But it’s you, not the town, which is drawing me back. If you’ll have me.’ Noni was lost now. ‘What are you saying, Iain?’ ‘I’m saying … I love you. I want to marry you. I want to live with you, be a part of your family and you be a part of mine, in Burra if you want to, for the rest of our lives.’ He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. ‘Say that again,’ Noni whispered. She couldn’t believe it. ‘I love you. The first time I saw you it was as if I’d been searching for you my whole life. Or maybe we’ve connected before in

The guest cabin at his in-laws’ north woods retreat was a great place to sleep. It sat a mere twenty feet from the water’s edge, and when there was a slight breeze the water would lap up against the shoreline rhythmically, sending you into a prenatal slumber. It was nature’s version of a mother’s heartbeat.

And I stood there, the fake mother between the genuine articles, Wendy and Mrs O’Flaherty. They seem to find it so easy; kids, husband, housework. To them, it comes as naturally as breathing. I just feel like I’m suffocating. Tilly hated the doll I got her. I don’t understand why she asked for it – she never plays with dolls. But still she went along with it, pretending to be pleased. But then Karen had to mention him: Stevie, the spectre at the feast. It wasn’t her fault, but that was the end of the ‘happy birthday’ game. The others went home and left us alone again. Tilly sat and looked at her presents. I could see that she was desperately holding herself together, like a sandcastle being lapped by the waves. And we both knew that the tide was coming in. I think she was doing it for me; protecting me from her hurt. She acts like she’s the mother and I’m the child. So what did I do? I drowned my sorrows. Again. Pathetic, despicable, worthless bitch that I am, I drank myself to sleep. Again.

The Little People I heard patter about under the floor of the Lap tent, no more bring food to the sleeping bears in their winter quarters; that is why there are so few bears in Sweden today. You are welcome to laugh incredulously at these busy Little People as much as you like at your own risk and peril. But I refuse to believe that any reader of this book will have the effrontery to deny that it was a real goblin I saw sitting on the table in Forsstugan and pull cautiously at my watch-chain. (...) I am told, to my surprise, that there are people who have never seen a goblin. One cannot help feeling sorry for such people. I am sure there must be something wrong with their eyesight. Old Uncle Lars Anders in Forsstugan, six feet six in his sheepskin-coat and wooden shoes, is dead long ago, and so is dear old Mother Kerstin, his wife. But the little goblin I saw sitting cross-legged on the table in the attic over the cow-stall is alive.

fuel to May’s ever-glowing fire. His in-laws would create and so would his father. Wilbur had been determined to see the infant shipped off to the workhouse and out of their lives. But he could handle his da the same as the rest of them if he was strong enough, and he would be strong over this. Mostly for his mother’s sake, he had to admit; she’d go mad with grief if the baby was put away, but also to make some sort of reparation to Bess, late though it was. And then there was Amy herself. He glanced down at the tot on his lap who was sleeping with her thumb in her mouth, her other hand clasping the front of his jacket. She had been sitting on Mrs Price’s lap finishing her supper when he had walked in the house, and when she had caught sight of him she had smiled and held out her arms. She had never done that before. Of course it was probably because she associated him with her grandma, he knew that, but nevertheless it had touched something inside him, melting the hardness.When all was said and done, you couldn’t blame the bairn for her beginnings. If anyone was the innocent in all of this, she was. As the tram jolted and creaked its way along, he looked out of the window, his mouth grim. There was

In the outskirts of the city, I saw a man lying on the floor of a dirty small room. There was nothing else in the room but a projecting movie and a chair. The movie showed him sleeping on the dirty floor. He sat in the chair and dissolved. His daughter came home and found the bones of her father in the chair. She sat on his lap bones, and she turned to bone dust. Her son came in and lay on the floor. There was nothing else left but the movie of his grandfather sleeping on the dirty floor, the chair and the combined bones. He sat in his mother’s lap bones and dissolved. His daughter came in and lay on the floor. There was nothing else left except the movie of her great-grandfather, the chair and the bones. She sat in her father's lap bones and she turned to dust. I averted my eyes.

Monastery Nights I like to think about the monastery as I’m falling asleep, so that it comes and goes in my mind like a screen saver. I conjure the lake of the zendo, rows of dark boats still unless someone coughs or otherwise ripples the calm. I can hear the four AM slipperiness of sleeping bags as people turn over in their bunks. The ancient bells. When I was first falling in love with Zen, I burned incense called Kyonishiki, “Kyoto Autumn Leaves,” made by the Shoyeido Incense Company, Kyoto, Japan. To me it smelled like earnestness and ether, and I tried to imagine a consciousness ignorant of me. I just now lit a stick of it. I had to run downstairs for some rice to hold it upright in its bowl, which had been empty for a while, a raku bowl with two fingerprints in the clay. It calls up the monastery gate, the massive door demanding I recommit myself in the moments of both its opening and its closing, its weight now mine, I wanted to know what I was, and thought I could find the truth where the floor hurts the knee. I understand no one I consider to be religious. I have no idea what’s meant when someone says they’ve been intimate with a higher power. I seem to have been born without a god receptor. I have fervor but seem to lack even the basic instincts of the many seekers, mostly men, I knew in the monastery, sitting zazen all night, wearing their robes to near-rags boy-stitched back together with unmatched thread, smoothed over their laps and tucked under, unmoving in the long silence, the field of grain ripening, heavy tasseled, field of sentient beings turned toward candles, flowers, the Buddha gleaming like a vivid little sports car from his niche. What is the mind that precedes any sense we could possibly have of ourselves, the mind of self-ignorance? I thought that the divestiture of self could be likened to the divestiture of words, but I was wrong. It’s not the same work. One’s a transparency and one’s an emptiness. Kyonishiki.... Today I’m painting what Mom calls no-colors, grays and browns, evergreens: what’s left of the woods when autumn’s come and gone. And though he died, Dad’s here, still forgetting he’s no longer married to Annie, that his own mother is dead, that he no longer owns a car. I told them not to make any trouble or I’d send them both home. Surprise half inch of snow. What good are words? And what about birches in moonlight, Russell handing me the year’s first chanterelle— Shouldn’t God feel like that? I aspire to “a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration,” as Elizabeth Bishop put it. So who shall I say I am? I’m a prism, an expressive temporary sentience, a pinecone falling. I can hear my teacher saying, No. That misses it. Buddha goes on sitting through the century, leaving me alone in the front hall, which has just been cleaned and smells of pine.

Kali was a symbol. According to the Vedic philosophy, Kaali signifies ‘Kaal’. In Sanskrit; kaal has two meanings : 1. Time. (like—kaal kya hoga) 2. Darkness. (like—Kaala kaaua) Now, why does ‘kaal’ signify both of these? Because, the Time is inseparable to the Space. The space is Dark. So the time is also considered as Dark. The “Kaala”. That’s why ‘kaal’ has two meanings; Darkness, and Time; in Sanskrit. There is no separate time, and separate space. Time is the fourth dimension of this universe along with three-dimensional space. The space exists; because time exists simultaneously with it. Kali is considered as the symbol of this time-space; the ultimate structure of the world—and this is why it is portrayed as dark; just like the space-time in reality, is dark. The violent and horrific form was portrayed of Kaali; because Kaali is the symbol of ‘kaal’, the time; and Time is unforgiving. Time is horrible by its nature. We all know how bad time can be. Time takes everyone to the death eventually; time destroys everything in the end. Time doesn’t take into account of who you are; time doesn’t take into account of how big you are or what your value is, be good or bad; each and everything has an end in the realm of time; and each and everything recedes ultimately in the ever engulfing mouth of the Time. This is the reason; death is portrayed all around the Kaali. The decapitated heads of demons; the bloods all around. All symbolize the death. The ending. The mortality of everything. Not of evil only; but of everything. It’s just, the evils are first in the line of death. And that tongue sticking out of her mouth symbolize—that the hunger of Kaali (the time) is never filled up. That tongue is always ready to savor the next death; the next destruction; the next ending of something. This stuck-out tongue is a reminder to the viewer; the hunger of ‘Kaal’ is not filled yet; and the next person she is going to savour can be you. In no way you can resist her for eternity; and in no way you can escape her. And she relishes licking out your death. It’s her duty; and amusement both. This is the reason why Kaali’s tongue was made stuck-out while portraying her in Vedic Scriptures. There is no clothing portrayed on Kaali; because— Time also shows you the nude reality. Time is rough, tough, rude, and nude. It speaks bluntly. Both good times and bad times comes without warning; and may go without warning too. Time does not know or follow politeness. Time does not follow any protocol. Time has nothing to ‘hide’ from you. Because she knows; in the end, whoever you are, you are all hers. Time holds each and everything in this universe in its womb. The creation happened; only because it has got a ‘time-space’ dimension for it. For anything to exist; Time has to produce it by creating a space for it. Time is also the destroyer of the all things; but time also creates everything; and holds everything within the eternal flow of her. That’s why time is considered as feminine. Time is a female who gives birth to its children; bears it for a while; and then takes them back again on her embracing lap. While singing the lullaby of the funeral; she gives her children the most peaceful eternal sleep for of their life : the Death. Life is beautiful; only because it has a time-limit to it. Without the time-limit imposed by the death; life is a prolonged disaster only. This is why; Time was considered as Mother in Vedic Culture. An energy; who is feminine in nature.