Ethel Waters’s Mother, Louise—Raped at Twelve—Cannot Listen to her Daughter Sing “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”

Julianna Baggott

Lord, I know that the hem of your robe
could fill a temple—a flood of ribbon,
and now your hem pours from her mouth?
It is you, Lord, called up from her,
a song to teach me a lesson
for not raising my own girl.
I would rather listen to barking dogs,
the gagged utterances of the mute,
my own mother crying
over dirt, a grave.
It is my sadness that Ethel sings, Lord,
my grief riding your hem.
(This hem will not cure me.)
She may think it is her own sorrow,
but each note, so whole, so unbroken—
so lush it is from your robe, born
of your hem that could fill a temple,
that once filled me
(temples can be destroyed)
and that hem
has always been made of song,
the kind too tender for the world,
the kind only a little pregnant raped girl
can call back into her mouth
and swallow,
and Ethel was the baby inside
who, there, within my slender ribs—a cage—
first pursed her lips learning
to suckle and sing my grief.

Visit Julianna Baggott as Image Artist of the Month for November '06

Issue #46 • Summer 2005