The Solemn-Eyed

Nobody remains in this world who remembers her like this. Solemn child. Her baby book records her birth and nothing after that. Her mother was gone. She hadn't died--nothing that serious. But she wasn't there. No. She had bad lungs. TB. And just after the infant's birth she tested positive again and left the infant with its father and grandmother for six weeks while she returned to the sanatorium to heal.

She left her with a name. Mary Jane.

Look at her. What is going through that baby's mind? Or is it the heart that causes infant eyes to gaze like someone old? So then, what is going through her heart? What is the feeling of being torn away from your source, your ground--to have the earth of you unwound? The towel must feel good--cocoon of a different sort, or maybe not, being such an inadequate substitute for the mother's arms, her breasts.

How soon after the mother left did the infant begin to forget? Because forgetting would be a necessity. When the mother is ripped away what makes it possible for such a fragile creature to survive? Something. I don't know what it is.

I can't stop looking at this infant's eyes. I see something there. I recognize something there. Do I remember her after all? Is it possible to remember? What did Mary Jane take as her mother once her birth mother went away? And when she finally returned,was she a stranger? Was there any remnant in the baby of the original mother's face? Had she lost the smell of her, the feeling of her skin? There was no more milk; how could there be?

She screamed with hunger after her mother left--so I was told. The old fashioned formula curdled and the baby screamed. Her grandma and her daddy, adept at other things, failed at this chemistry. If you've ever made cream of tomato soup from scratch, you can appreciate their frustration. Mary Jane screamed and the formula curdled once again. When they finally got it right, it needed to be cooled. Her grandma rocked her while her daddy tested the obstinate liquid on the inside of his wrist.

The story came down in  family lore as funny. Silly daddy. Silly grandma. The baby came through it fine, though. Just look at her. Healthy. Not plump, really, but sufficient.

Curious, about those solemn eyes.

I'm haunted right now by those two words--they seem part of a poem or song. I consult Wikipedia. Yeats. Of course:

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us she's going,

The solemn-eyed: