The More-Mother (La mamadre)

My more-mother comes by 

in her wooden shoes. Last night

the wind blew from the pole, the roof tiles

broke, and walls 

and bridges fell.

The pumas of night howled all night long, 

and now, in the morning 

of icy sun, she comes, 

my more-mother, Dona 

Trinidad Marverde,

soft as the tentative freshness 

of the sun in storm country, 

a frail lamp, self-effacing, 

lighting up

to show others the way.

Dear more-mother—

I was never able 

to say stepmother!—

at this moment

my mouth trembles to define you, 

for hardly

had I begun to understand

than I saw goodness in poor dark clothes, 

a practical sanctity—

goodness of water and flour,

that's what you were. Life made you into bread, 

and there we fed on you, 

long winter to forlorn winter 

with raindrops leaking 

inside the house, 

and you,

ever present in your humility, 

sifting 

the bitter 

grain-seed of poverty 

as if you were engaged in 

sharing out

a river of diamonds.

Oh, mother, how could I 

not go on remembering you 

in every living minute?

Impossible. I carry

your Marverde in my blood,

surname

of the shared bread, 

of those gentle hands

which shaped from a flour sack 

my childhood clothes,

of the one who cooked, ironed, washed, 

planted, soothed fevers, 

and when everything was done 

and I at last was able 

to stand on my own sure feet, 

she went off, fulfilled, dark, 

off in her small coffin

Where for once she was idle

under the hard rain of Temuco.

—Pablo Neruda, The More-Mother/ La mamadre, from Where the Rain Is Born/ Donde nace la lluvia from the collection Isla Negra translated by Alastair Reid, Rupa & Co. 2005