For My Daughter and My Mother... and All Mothers

An Unconditional Love Poem

"What unites all people of all time, is not that we are all mothers but that we have all been born of a mother who was born of a mother who was born of a mother…" ~ Donna Wilshire

Mother

You were her seed

Nested in womb

You were her deed

Protected bloom

Of that flowering decision

That gave you existence

The fine division

Twixt woman & her soul's resistance

To split her spirit

To share her life

Take a stranger & endear it

And value her role in that life

First for energy

First for care

Precious synergy

Root of joy & despair

Painful birth

The blood she shed

Symbolic worth

Essence of antithesis wed

Tiny creature

She gave you a name

Her eyes, hair and feature

Exactly the same

You have her skin

The sound of her laughter

Temperament akin

Forever after

And as wide as the world

As far as you roam

Ever her little girl

Ever the heart leads you home

Soon you will grow tall

Adulthood may bring you pride

You'll never feel more helpless & small

As when you held your mother as she cried.

 

© 12/22/98