A belated Mother's Day post. But not too late for Mother's Day itself.
Of course, lest we forget, everyday is Mother's Day.
Dear Mom,
These words struck me first:
because I don't mean these poems only
but the unseen
unbelievable effort it takes to live
the life that goes on between them,*
Because they reflect
My own experience
With my own kids
Memories of chasing
Them as toddlers
Around the “Old Park” arose.
Then, as I read on,
I realize this rememberance
Is as much about you
And my grandmas and aunts,
As it is about me,
If not more.
With deep love,
Eric
*Invisible Work
Because no one could ever praise me enough,
because I don't mean these poems only
but the unseen
unbelievable effort it takes to live
the life that goes on between them,
I think all the time about invisible work.
About the young mother on Welfare
I interviewed years ago,
who said, "It's hard.
You bring him to the park,
run rings around yourself keeping him safe,
cut hot dogs into bite-sized pieces for dinner,
and there's no one
to say what a good job you're doing,
how you were patient and loving
for the thousandth time even though you had a headache."
And I, who am used to feeling sorry for myself
because I am lonely,
when all the while,
as the Chippewa poem says, I am being carried
by great winds across the sky,
thought of the invisible work that stitches up the world day and night,
the slow, unglamorous work of healing,
the way worms in the garden
tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe
and bees ransack this world into being,
while owls and poets stalk shadows,
our loneliest labors under the moon.
There are mothers
for everything, and the sea
is a mother too,
whispering and whispering to us
long after we have stopped listening.
I stopped and let myself lean
a moment, against the blue
shoulder of the air. The work
of my heart
is the work of the world's heart.
There is no other art.
~ Alison Luterman ~
(The Largest Possible Life)
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