At my mother's memorial, I grabbed a copy of the poetry book Carolyn Howard-Johnson and I co-authored from her bookshelf, and read a poem from it about how I used to climb into her bed as a young child, and how safe it felt to me (my own children did the same when they were younger...). I've reprinted that poem below. Of course, I'm not the only one in the world who has lost my mother. She Wore Emerald Then
was released the week of the death of Carolyn’s mother, so the
book, which has always been tied to Mother's Day, has a certain
poignancy for both of us.
Carolyn and I are going to be running another freebie this year at Amazon. If you don't already have a copy of She Wore Emerald Then, which features beautiful photography from May Lattanzio, please go and grab a copy for free here: http://www.amazon.com/She-Wore-Emerald-Then-Reflections-ebook/dp/B00BXPW2XO anytime from the 5th to the 9th of May (US dates).If you're a mother, or if you have a mother (and that's all of us, even those of us whose mother is no longer alive), please have a happy Mother's Day, even if that happiness is tinged with longing, because every beautiful moment has a kind of permanence to it, even as it disappears into the transience of time.
Mother's Bed
In the restless
night
when mortality
lurks in every shadow
the blanket won’t
cover your fear
and morning is a
half-forgotten dream
vague and
uncertain,
slink into my bed
the pillow holds a
mother’s secret
whispered charm
you can sink your
head into.
There are no
demons here;
no whirlwind of
memory and anticipation clouding sleep
only eternal
warmth
a shared space
free from the
ticking illusion
of time, motion,
and change.
Here, where you
are always welcome
nothing matters
except this peace
this place
containing every
possible now.
