Stabat Mater
My mother called my father ‘Mr
Hunt’
For the first few years of
married life.
I learned this from a book she
had inscribed:
‘To dear Mr Hunt, from his
loving wife.’
She was embarrassed when I
asked her why
But later on explained how hard
it had been
To call him any other name at
first, when he –
Her father’s elder – made her
seem so small.
Now in a different way, still
like a girl,
She calls my father every other
sort of name;
And guiding him as he roams old
age
Sometimes turns to me as if it
were a game…
That once I stand up straight,
I too must learn
To walk away and know there’s no
return.
-
Sam Hunt
The poem begins with Sam stumbling onto the formality in the
relationship that had exited between his parent’s earlier. The words “I learned”
show that he did not remember from his childhood nor did anyone tell him but that
he discovered. Also, that this decorum of formality was followed during the
initial years of their marriage only. The word “inscribed” shows an indelible
mark that has been left behind. That she did not address him by his first name is
more apparent than her calling him “Mr. Hunt”.
Is the poet meaning to say something when he rhymes “wife” with “life”
is the question that comes to reader’s mind while reading.
For the mother it is embarrassing to explain to the child that the sheer
age difference between them stopped her from calling him by “any other name”. Here too, what comes across is not that the
husband made her feel small but that she felt humbled in his presence and that
his stature was so high that she felt “small”. The poet focuses on the age
difference by using dashes twice once before and after “her father’s elder”.
The author’s indirect use of enjambment in the line “hard it had been” conjures
the image of a tough taskmaster that they husband may have been in the past
only to contrast to merely the inability of addressing him otherwise. The
contrast of thought between “hard” and “simple” comes through to the reader.
The “girl” in the mother remains. Earlier she was a girl because she
was much younger. She is a girl even now for she endears him with ever “sort of
name”. The first line carries a separated oxymoron in “different” and “like” to
show the similarity and contrast in the mother. A focused read of the poem
reveals the authors deliberate use of “name” and “game” to rhyme, again like puns
have been intended to be separated. The
game of names comes alive in this rhyme scheme. The reader is subtly guided to
the change of game. The father needs “guidance” and is now dependent on the
mother. The image gradually dawns on the reader.
The first read of the last lines may seem to lead to death but perhaps
it is about no return to being young only growing up and becoming old.
The poem is about knowing that there is “no return” to youth and the
endearments life carries with itself. The unsaid comes through more than the said.
“Once I stand up straight”, for example, seems to be not so much about being
independent as about the transition from dependent to independent and not being
able to go back.
Sam’s theme remains the family, yet finality of death does not seem to
be the end of life, no return to youth does. Clearly, he was intrigued and
perhaps proud of the age difference between his parents.
“Stabat Mater” refers to mother Mary, however here is sorrowful not for
her son but the father of the son.
