Category Archives: Mother’s Day Poem

The Birth of Motherhood

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The first borne is a refocusing,

A wonderment which halves

Your heart in the mystery of it all.

Each half, if bonded together,

Is a doubling of your thrums,

And a healthy enlargement.

One little child is all it took.

You’re in a new identity.

We all see it, that cradling

Look you give over and over.

The center of gravity shifted,

And there you are swirling

round and round.

“What child is this?”

Is a daily question now…

Somewhat rhetorical,

Yet asked again and again

As if for the first time.

This is for all the new mothers and mother’s to be. Particularly Voilet, Kaleena, Chandra, and Sammy

Mother’s Day Dreamer

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I woke up about 4:00 a.m.

and looked down the hall

at the fridge, hoping to see

Little Miss Midnight Mouse

eating the cottage cheese

in her blue nightie.

 

There she was, her hunched frame aglow.

She turned around and smiled

her dark chocolate eyes at me

and raised the small curds

like a wine glass.

“Oh honestly!”

 

“Oh honestly what Mom?”

“It’s not time for you yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this place Jerry.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“You are dreaming again.”

 

“If I am, I don’t want to wake up.”

As Mom began walking toward me,

the fridge light brightened,

and her body was surrounded

with golden shards that dripped

to the creaking floor.

 

“Jerry, remember how you always

prayed Jesus would visit me in my dreams.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, he said it would be okay if

I showed up in one of yours.

That Frosty from Wendy’s right

 

before you fell asleep was my ticket.”

“Comfort food enhanced dream, eh?”

“God has a sense of humor too, Gerald.”

“Mom.” I reached to pat her head.

She stepped back out of reach.

I put my arm down.

 

“You caught me with the leftovers,

and I wanted to be waiting for you

at the dining room table so we could

talk and drink Maxwell House.”

She straightened up

and opened her freckled arms.

 

I fell into her embrace and wept.

She clasped my hand and pulled

me toward the table that had two

mugs steaming, one with lipstick

pasted on the rim.

We were together until my alarm bleeped.

Mother Mary. A Mother’s Day Reflection

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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.