Mother of Spring

Those who know tremble at the return of the mother.

Sal Randolph

Apr 03, 2025

Photograph of the head from a Roman sculpture of a goddess, probably Ceres. The head is sculpted from marble. Her wavy hair is parted in the middle and is dressed so that it comes down just below her ears. She has an oval face with small, delicate lips. Her eyes have no pupils and she seems to be gazing ahead. Part of her nose is broken off, as is part of her hair. Pomegranate fruits woven into her hair suggest that she is a goddess associated with spring. The sculpture is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum and dates to the first half of the 2nd century, CE. — Marble Head of a Deity (associated with the generative powers of nature), Roman, 1st half of 2nd century CE, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dear Friends,

With spring comes life, and with life comes the mother.

— Sal

Spring mother

Equilux, equinox, and the terrible sun is pressing upwards from underground. The surface of the earth bulges. Green shoots are shoved up, green spears, green knives. Those who know tremble at the return of the mother.

From her place in the earth, the mother is demanding we tell our stories without complaint and without exhortation. The mother is purple with telling. The mother is a blue slipper, like the sky. From the earth comes fear to us. From we, come a calling.

Spring, like the mother, is a memory of itself. It is nothing without return. And in this way it is my own fear that brings the mother into existence. The mother begets and the begetting begats. What I am trying to say is that the shape is a tied ribbon. Mother causes daughter who causes mother. And so we are here like this, neither one thing nor another.

The mother’s fingers are thick with rings. I have a hoop in my hand, and time itself is rolling. If we could set down one true thing everything might stop. But there is no singly true thing.

The mother has erased all the usual memories, and so everything takes place in the present. Walking down the street under the fat buds. Bathing in the hot light and the cold wind.

Someone said, not long ago, that I should learn to be an oracle of the traditional kind. What they meant was that I should become an animal. A snake with its tail twined with another snake. I should become an egg with a secret heart.