Mother of Tales, Mother of Protest

Let me tell you a story, said the mother as she leaned down from the sky.

Sal Randolph

Apr 24, 2025

Paul Nash, “Vegetation” from *Genesis*, 1924, Public Domain Review

Dear Friends,

The mother keeps speaking in my ear and will not let me write without telling her stories.

— Sal

Tale Mother

Let me tell you a story, said the mother as she leaned down from the sky. Once, in the long ago and the always, there was a child who grew out of the earth like a plant. No one was near, but if you had seen her, you might guess she was nine or eleven: walking on her two feet but not yet at the age of knowledge.

The girl had emerged from everything that was underground—from the people hiding out there, from the meetings, from the plans. It was a terrible time in the land. Monstrous giants walked forth, crushing what was loved beneath their bare feet. By now you may be guessing that the girl was a savior or that she was some form of magic. By now you may be hoping that she had grown in your forest, in your park.

Even in stories, it doesn’t work like that. Not anymore. What the land needed was not one girl, it was every adult. What the girl needed was to be the girl she was.

If this were a fairy tale, which it is not, the girl would shake the forest floor from her feet and go walking. She would find a hut and knock there, and an old woman would open the door. Grandmother, the girl would say, all politeness, is there a task I can do for you? The grandmother would nod, and set the girl to clearing and weeding an impossibly large patch of ground. You can imagine how it would go from there, so there’s no need to tell that tale.

All this the mother whispered while I was caught between sleeping and waking, between dark and sun.

Everyone in the city carries a bag—tote, purse, satchel, backpack, roller—except those who don’t, whose bags are pockets, whose pockets are minds. What I mean is there are so many stories, and none of them knows what a story is.

Protest Mother

In the middle of our walking there came a storm. The weather whirled, wound tight as a bud, and touched down by my feet. Out of the wind came the mother. The mother stood among the marchers and we all began to move.

Three times the height of the tallest, the mother held up a sign I could not read. At her heels came animals, all spotted, all dappled: racing leopards, Dalmatians, Appaloosas, fawns. A tender giraffe bent its neck over her shoulder and gazed down at me. Then it raised its knee and we were all pacing again.

A hundred thousand, we were. Above us, no helicopters; around us, no police, no barricades. We were the gathering and the walking.

The protest now was me—I, now, was not the protest. The raw air, the pushing, the walking together, the signs I did not make. Just offstage the flowers were shouting and the birds did not cease in their desires. We were performing the number which is saying no.

I wanted to rewind the blossoms back into their shells and drug the trees into the sleep of winter. Furl, furl. But the signs were shining in the dull light and they pointed the way.

I was not the nation, the nation now was me. I was not the ruin and destruction, the ruin and destruction now were me. I remembered myself on the floor, carefully marking out words. I was not the writing, but now the writing was me. I was not the sign, but the sign was me. Tell me where you were when we thought of each other. What was it we remembered?

The protest is the body of my discontent, but the joy of the protest is the mother’s joy. We are performing the beauty which is saying no. We are performing the hand of winter.

Come back to me, come back to me; everything I imagined was true. Nothing I imagined was ever true, and nothing I imagine is ever gone.