Poem

I have written poems for as long as I can remember.  But I usually keep them to myself because I consider them my private expression, often about very personal feelings or subject matter.  So be surprised when I announce that, below, I am pasting a poem I recently wrote.  After all, mom's deserve special consideration; good moms, doubly so!  Perhaps by the time next Mother's Day rolls around, I will have managed to make it all rhyme, but I kinda like how it is-- more like a spoken-word piece. 

Quiet Thank Yous

A free-form poem about my mom

Biology joined us three decades ago

And biology binds us still

But we share much more than genetic codes:

Time, emotion, happiness, and even trauma

These threads span the continent

Connecting our distant hearts

And our prayers span the cosmos

Connecting our different spirits

Different, I say, because she is sweet

While I boast an honest, Realist streak.

She knows what is right and what is good,

While I think I always know what is best

I find myself year after year,

Eating my proverbial hat

It’s hard to say, “You’re right”

It’s harder to say, “I’m sorry”

When I find I don’t know it all

When I realize your unseen service

I can’t scream my gratitude, for shyness

So all you may get is a quiet thank you

A thank you so faint, it is scarcely there,

A whisper that’s unheard off-stage

But the feelings behind the murmur

Can fill an orchestra hall with your praise

A little girl with pigtails, crying for Mom,

Can only manage a murmur

Of thank you through her tears-

She doesn’t know what else to say

A young lady is unspeakably grateful

When you sacrifice your knitting needle

To relieve her itchy, cast-covered arm

All she can think to say is a quiet thank you

A new graduate, alone and so far from home

Hates to admit that she misses her mom

So when the family all flies in to see her

No words can express, so none are said

The young woman is now lost inside her own head

She cannot see past all the staples and dread,

Only one stays beside her, both day and night

This faithful one is, of course, that dear mom

The mom who has only received quiet thank yous,

The mom who now helps the young woman walk,

The mom who must help her adult-child shower,

The mom who lends a shoulder as her daughter cries.

The walls are covered with charts for the young woman’s progress

The refrigerator is full of her most favorite things

Mom is now her physical therapist, her nurse, and her friend

As the young woman leans on mom and dares to still live

And now, yet again, there seems nothing to give

Nothing the daughter can do

Nothing to account for the weeks of loving

Nothing but a quiet thank you

Healing months are welcomed home

And a bride stands next to her tearful mom

They look in the mirror, and mom zips the bride,

Who stares in the mirror, love brimming inside

The bride hesitates- can she do it alone?

Time to now leave the sanctuary of mom.

And what can she do, to express years of joy?

To give thanks for boundless love and care?

One word on the subject would surely bring tears

And the photographer is waiting outside.

Nothing can encompass the love she has felt,

The protection mom has been her whole life.

And so, yet again, we see the dear daughter,

The object of decades of grace,

With nothing but gratitude in her growing heart,

Offering a quiet thank you and embrace.

 

There really are no words except that I love you, Momma Pea! xoxo