Mother

Pointedly dropping her shoes

on the floor, she laughs.

She just swept. And mopped.

And put everyone else’s shoes

away.

There is deliberate

Rebellion in her act.

A quiet, momentary anarchy.

In her most victorious, almost convincing,

Confidence,

She walks away.

The shoes lay there

In stoic homage to her uprising.

Until later, when

She silently returns to

put them away.

 

 

Weight

She shrugs off the

expectations of the world

living free, if only

for the moment.

A life lost on

longing

for acceptance

for approval

for arrival.

Daring to allow

an honest look

at how beautiful she

really is, how smart she

really is.

How significant she really is.

A moment free,

then gone.

The world waits impatiently

to saddle her with its baggage,

to confuse her into thinking it’s her own.

 

Inside

We are surrounded

by the accumulation

of our successes,

proof of how meaningful we are to the universe.

Lights, sounds, noise, static, speaking without

words, writing without thought.

We grow ever outward in our

pursuits, building, building

ever upward, ever layering

innovation upon invention.

Wild with our triumph

we neglect the hidden,

the truth, the foundation, the place where we

began our journeys and the

undeniable core.

Weakened with our ever-growing

heap of victories, we are

crumbling beneath its weight.

Inside our bodies
 

inside our minds, inside our world,

 

that prized, glittering, triumphant world, 

 we rot.

 

 

Greatness

There is a greatness within,

silent, powerful,

but subdued by doubts

and fear and hate and

loss and the overwhelming

pressure of a reality that

won’t make room.

Lie here silently. Listen.

It breathes within you.

It breathes within you.

 

 

Mother's Poem to a Young Boy

He sits at my knee,
crying his broken heart
to pieces.
They laughed at him
or teased him
or said no to
playing his game.
He doesn't understand.
I hold him, as closely
as his bruised boyish
independence allows.
“I can't help you understand
the hate, or the
hurt,
or the thousand of other
things in our world
that make no sense, child.
I can only tell you that
I'm here,
and will be,
forever.”

Copyright (c) 2012