Happy Mother's Day Mamas!
What I Learned from my Mother by Being One:
to my daughter
How hard it is to follow through after “no” is said
and how easy it is to buy something for you, instead of me.
Why she stayed up until I got home late at night
and why zipper robes and scuffy slippers became a uniform.
That it is easy to forget the most obvious,
like birthdays, promises, where you put something down
but hard to forget what was said and just how
and how the weight of you being rocked will haunt me,
with blinds rippling with the up down, up down
of dark and light, in time, with the creaking rocker.
Why the art of distancing from what you most love,
once in a while, is necessary to maintain yourself.
I understand now how you can really be just resting your eyes
and not quite sleeping and how the square I create
on the couch with my legs, can be filled perfectly,
by you just wanting to be near.
I learned from her how to trace your features with fingertips,
around closed eyes, smoothing brow, down nose,
feeling bone under soft cheeks, and threading hair.
This is how to find your way back again.
What I Learned from my Mother by Being One:
to my daughter
How hard it is to follow through after “no” is said
and how easy it is to buy something for you, instead of me.
Why she stayed up until I got home late at night
and why zipper robes and scuffy slippers became a uniform.
That it is easy to forget the most obvious,
like birthdays, promises, where you put something down
but hard to forget what was said and just how
and how the weight of you being rocked will haunt me,
with blinds rippling with the up down, up down
of dark and light, in time, with the creaking rocker.
Why the art of distancing from what you most love,
once in a while, is necessary to maintain yourself.
I understand now how you can really be just resting your eyes
and not quite sleeping and how the square I create
on the couch with my legs, can be filled perfectly,
by you just wanting to be near.
I learned from her how to trace your features with fingertips,
around closed eyes, smoothing brow, down nose,
feeling bone under soft cheeks, and threading hair.
This is how to find your way back again.
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