Ahnentafel, Song for the Unnamed - Susan Collier Lamont

[Larry Robinson]

Ahnentafel, Song for the Unnamed


I come to remember the family of women; the mothers, the midwives, the bloody work of labor, the stories told and lost, the names waiting to be found and with this song to raise up the dead and name them, to untie the knot of grief.

I come from the family of nameless women who gave their lives
giving life. The labor that is women’s work. Birthing, nursing, burying George, Margaret, Richard, Ann, Isaac…

I was born into the family of women who sailed the Irish Sea, the North Atlantic, sore at heart. Women who trod the Wilderness Road, the Cumberland Gap. Born in Wales, Ireland, North Carolina, headed for Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas…

I imagine the women, footsore, babes in tow; the Redbud, the Dogwood, the call of the Mourning Dove in the soaking rain; the cabins along the waters of Dutchman’s Creek, Deep Creek, Elisha’s Creek…

I hear no songs of thanks; no hymns of praise; no prayers for the unnamed.

I imagine tears on every face, seeds of grace and despair in equal measure, a fevered beauty as children slipped slick from bodies torn with pain.

“In sorrow though shalt bring forth children…” Genesis 3:16

The joyner, the wife, the tobacco planter, the wife, the still owner, the wife, the cordwainer, the wife, the God-fearing, hard-working farmer, the wife of William Stone, of Elias Anders, of Thomas Mims…

I seek the nameless mothers birthing thirteen children, burying five; the midwives with soiled hands; the mothers buried and bearing God’s punishment of Eve.

“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one…” Job 14:1

I try, but where the blood seeped, only the earth remembers.


	 - Susan Collier Lamont
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