Mother’s Necklace

Lobster claw clasp
golden chain
Tiger’s eye in saw tooth bezel.

Dull, damaged, piece of glass
monolithic stone
convex like mother’s stomach.

Mother’s Legacy
a chatoyant fleck, like light
in the blink of a cat’s eye.

About This Poem (Only read if you want a description of what I was trying to convey. However, the reader can find their own meanings, and I honor that.

I wrote this poem when I was in college back sometime between 2003 and 2006. I struggled to impress any of my poetry teachers, because I struggled with finding the precise vocabulary to convey meaning through a literary means. I still find this to be difficult. If you struggle with the same thing when writing poems, my best advice is the same advice that all my teachers have given me over the years. Read. Read poetry, read literature, read about poetry and literature.

Mother’s Necklace was a poem about my mother. The poem is about a necklace, but the real subject was a ring. The ring, which I still have to this day, was a large tiger’s eye gemstone. If you don’t know tiger’s eye gemstone, it is a gemstone that reflects light similar to the way light reflects in a cat’s eye. This is called chatoyancy. The cut of the stone is cabochon which means it is cut into a convex form which means it is smooth and protrudes like early pregnancy.

In the poem, I describe the ring with its setting, but then include a chain to turn it into a necklace. I imagine the narrator is looking at the necklace in the light. I tried to go deeper with the poem, not only describing it, but also connecting it to my mother describing the convex stone evocative of pregnancy, and she gave the ring to me making the ring a legacy, but I am also her legacy. I was also thinking of how quickly life passes, “like light in the blink of a cat’s eye”.

Mother’s Necklace was the first and only poem that my poetry professor liked.