The Mother of My Invention

Free verse from a dream child

Necessity is the mother of invention — English proverb

I am my mother’s invention born of her need to create for she has wild intentions and requires a new playmate.

Ideas in gestation popping out like chicks unscrambled from the bubbling, brewing stew of our combined creation.

We fill the world with colour painting birds, broadcasting seeds conference calling with the bees to fashion favourite flowers

— this all in my mother’s power.

We craft creatures by the hundreds watch life riot in abundance potion dreams of paradise unlost.

I wake, look up from dew-cooled grass while mother lives in clouds that pass, my childhood vision gone — alas.

I worried about my mother as a child because she suffered from schizophrenia and I developed a sense of protectiveness and responsibility earlier than I otherwise would have. I also spent quite a lot of time in daydreams and looking back I think this was probably a coping mechanism.

My mother missed a lot of the fun and creativity she would have enjoyed were it not for episodes of mental ill health. In this poem I dream of a more carefree childhood for me and my mother where play, creativity and fun are its essence.

With thanks to David S. for his prompt play: