05/11/2025
This poem I wrote (years ago) is in honor of Mother’s Day:
GENTLE MOTHERS
The women I have known
without children
either by choice or by chance
are some of the most nurturing souls.
As if they were ordained
to already possess “gentle mother”
in such a degree
as to not need a physical baby,
as if they’ve learned those lessons
in some other time.
I imagine wounds that must exist,
loss and grief
because it is ecstasy
to be the physical vessel of creation.
It is also pain.
a lifelong pain,
a different pain, yet
a similar pain.
“If only I had children.”
“If only I had no children.”
Is it not the same conversation,
the same illusions?
I am sometimes resentful
of the sheer numbers of hours
of my life
I spend mothering my children;
when finally I steal away,
some respite in the wee hours before
the dawn of “being mother” begins again.
Unconscious mothers
birthing unconscious children
perpetrating unconscious legacies,
recycling the same wounds.
Is it not a larger responsibility
to birth the conscious woman inside
these mothers and mothers-to-be
so the world can continue to cycle?
Their call is different
their children are us all
who feel joy and amazement
to have been reborn
and emerge newly
and newly again.
Sister, friend, mentor, teacher, colleague,
into your mothering arms
I know I am always
welcome.
