She pondered these things in her heart.

Mothers do that quite often.

She kept all these things.

My mother did too.

 

An angel told Mary.

The power of the Highest will.

An overshadowing of foreshadows.

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”

 

All mothers are infused with possibilities.

They lay down their self dreams

and rest folded hands upon

their distended bellies.

 

Mary carried wonder

full term and delivered hope.

There was blood and water and child.

All mothers hold pasty skin to chest with awe.

 

My mother held each of us close for a moment.

A snip of the umbilical and the separation

began a journey of contemplation.

What will? What if? Life.

 

Mary’s path was set.

From empty womb to empty tomb

the realities of motherhood were multiplied.

The gestation in her heart left stretch marks of spirit.

 

Near the end Mary drank of the cup no mother should.

She wept just like Jesus and red drops fell

as sweat on her brow as she prayed.

Blood fell on her and for her.

 

No mother should lose a child.

My mother was ten for ten when she died.

She was spared Mary’s anguish under a broken sky.

Jesus spoke living words. “Woman, behold you son! Behold your mother.”

 

Even in death he loved her so and knew hers was an acquainted grief.

I wonder if Mary was one who anointed his body.

Those things she held in her heart poured

on and massaged in his skin.

 

Then came the first Mother’s Day.

Sunday he was birthed again to Mary’s arms.

The Rose of Sharon was given from her loving Father.

She then held him close and smelled the fragrance of redemption.