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This Mother’s Day without you strains belief
In life and love and what it means to be,
But there is beauty in my lonely grief.

Your death is like a wound without relief,
Pain on pain as far as I can see,
And so this day without you strains belief.

What’s the point of living when a thief
Can break into your heart so easily?
But there is beauty in my lonely grief.

You fell away from me, a withered leaf
Twisting down to darkness, leaving me
This day without you, chilling my belief.

And yet there’s beauty in this burning brief
Bright burst of light that ends in agony,
Beauty in the cause of lonely grief,

The love I have for you, a jewel-like reef
In silent prayer beneath my empty sea.
This Mother’s Day without you strains belief,
But there is beauty in my lonely grief.

To my sister on Mother’s Day:
Often I remember how we were
More focused on ourselves when we were young.
Years and children sweep in like a tide,
Separating us from distant shores.
In truth, we’re even closer than before,
Sustaining our childhood inside,
The memories to which we both belong
Enriched by what love teaches us to bear,
Resonant with what we rarely say.

To my wife on Mother’s Day,
Our habitude and light:
May you be as happy as
You make us with your love.
Winds may blow the world away,
Intent on reaching night.
For us there’ll always be a home,
Everywhere you move.

To the mothers of children who never were children,
Who died in the womb unnamed and unknown:
You also were mothers, albeit but briefly,
And loved with the love given mothers alone.

Yours was the stirring of life within life,
The being of being all one being knew,
The love of a love that knew only your love,
The world to a world that knew no world but you.

Yours the unspeakable pleasure of giving
Your substance to nurture the creature within;
Yours the inscrutable song of creation,
Bringing to being the dust of the wind.

Death is the end, but never the meaning;
Life is a gift, no matter how long.
You, too, are mothers, the bearers of beauty,
The icons of love to whom this day belongs.

What do you do when your mother is crazy,
Hysterical, selfish, abusive, and cruel?
What do you do when really you hate her,
And it’s all you can do to be distantly cool?

What do you do when you find her repulsive,
And the best of your memories are tinted with pain?
And now she is old, and needs to be near you,
And you cannot stand to be near her again?

How do you tell her the truth when the truth
Keeps accruing like some insurmountable debt?
When the horror that haunts you goes back to a moment
You cannot remember and cannot forget?

What do you do with your love when your love
Has been buried so long that you can’t find its grave?
When love for a parent lies outside a window
Through which you imagine how people behave?

What do you do when whatever you do
Must cost more than the option you failed to choose?
For whether you turn to embrace or forsake her,
You’re left with a burden you cannot refuse.

You are my mother and my friend,
Which is unusual.
Somehow our characters must blend:
Your wisdom and my will.

I turn, and you are there for me;
I speak, you understand.
I feel cared for, but also free;
You lead but don’t command.

I’m fortunate that I was born
To someone just like you;
I love you, not just as my mom,
But for what you are and do.

You took us in and loved us as your own
Though you were old enough to need some rest.
Now you are eighty and alone,
Rattling on within your empty nest.
Though we no longer live within your doors,
You will always live within our hearts.
I think of you, and that sweet thought restores
My happiness, as my own Red Sea parts.
This you’ve done for me, more than the toil,
The prostrate nights, the scarce funds spent, the pain:
Your love and selflessness have been the soil
In which my life can always bloom again.
I cannot think what I would do or be
Without the love that you have given me.

You were my mother and my friend,
Which was unusual.
Somehow our characters still blend:
Your wisdom and my will.

I turned, and you were there for me;
I spoke, you understood.
I felt cared for, but also free;
You loved, and I was good.

I’m fortunate that I was born
To someone just like you;
I love you still. Though you are gone,
You live in what I do.

You’ve been my ‘nother mother since
My mother passed away,
And what your love has given me
I never can repay.

I wish that I could be for you
What you have been for me,
But though you’re going through tough times,
Your mom I cannot be.

Still, I will be all I can
And give you all my love,
For you’ve the best, most selfless heart
A person could dream of.

Your legacy must be both love and fear.
I know that when you died, you feared for me.
The family curse you carried in your breast
Was not a gift you wanted to pass on.

But fear of it, just like my love for you,
Must linger in my heart, unwelcome guest!
And as I weep for your too early death,
I also can hear rumblings of my own.

Ah, Mother! We are linked like paper dolls,
A line of little cutouts in a row.
I see my clearest memories in my mirror
And feel your anguish bloom beneath my breast.

For this, my love for you is more, not less.
In our misfortune there’s a common grace:
For me, in that you must have grieved my burden;
For you, in that you must have mine foreseen.