For all that you have given me,I can return but love. For youBound up the wounds I did not seeAnd gave me hopes and passions new.I can return but love for you,Whose unmoved faith my heart did move,And gave me hopes and passions new,And loved me till I turned to love.Whose unmoved faith did my heart move?The mother of my heart, not blood,Who loved me till I turned to love.And I became the soul I would.The mother of my heart, not blood,Bound up the wounds I did not see.And I became the soul I wouldFor all that you have given me.

Here are all your children in one place,Enshrined behind some glass within a frame.A picture’s like a word, a sign, a name,Symbolic of a much more complex grace.Years of memories lie behind each face,A wild sea no blessing can contain;Years and years of love, of joy, of pain,Of mysteries no heart can hope to trace.Here are all the objects of your love,A frozen section cut away from Time,A summit between dreams and memories,Which you need only look this way to climb;An icon for domestic reveriesThrough which a thousand answered prayers move.

GOLD STAR MOTHERSStarted with a group of twentyfiveIn the year of twentyeightBy those who lost a Son or DaughterFrom the wartime’s cruel fate.When the Blue Star on the Service FlagWas replaced with one of GoldEverybody knew a Mother grievedWith a loss from that household.Out of tragedy, we were formedAnd, Out of love we continue.This legacy of Gold Star MothersWith the heartache, that they knew.Its so sad, they still existAnd most likely always willAs long as, we go to warThere’s a need they must fulfill.Submitted By: Del “Abe” Jones

Behold the mother with her newborn child!An icon of a hope that never dies.Death may label all we cherish lies,Yet this love lies too deep to be defiled.We clear an inner field where fate has smiled,Letting play the pleasures of surmise,Holding back all contrary replies,As though our thoughts might turn the winters mild.Despite the wellknown travesties of time,Each time a child is born we dream anew,For only thus our losses are regained.Though we must share the destiny of slime,No passion in our palette is more trueThan that which cradles innocence unstained.

From the distance of our separationI see the whole of which I was a part;I see the way my temper tore your heart,And then the love beneath the laceration.I see the landscape shaping our relation:Your fear that I might choose with little art,My anger at the dreams you would impart,The ancient paths that lead to confrontation.But knowledge needn’t linger in regret,Nor wait upon some wind to clear its sky.We are none the worse for what is gone.The moments that I never will forgetAre those whose careless grace must make me cry,Safe within a heart forever won.

I love you and I need you, even thoughI may at times have made you tear your hair!I set myself apart, but even soYour presence and your love are always there.You are my jail cell and tenton doorThat keeps me from just being who I am.And so I pound the walls and go to war,Ramming all the rules that I can ram.Yet though I must rebel, all the whileI know your love’s the ground on which I stand.I wait upon the flash of your proud smileAnd twist inside at every reprimand.I’m sorry for the times I’ve caused you pain;After these brief storms, love will remain.

I know how difficult I’ve made your lifeNow that you’ve brought home another father.You have your new dominion as a wifeWhile I still mourn the absence of the other.And yet I recognize your right to chooseThe man you love, whatever I might feel.Life is not a game to win or lose:For that the pain on both sides is too real.It therefore is my place to make a placeWithin my heart for one who lives in yours.There is no way to do this but with grace,For one must be at home with open doors.Please forgive the failure of my love.Your love for me should mine for your love move.

STILL IN THE HEARTI have this Lady friendWhose Mother passed awayMoving to a better placeAnd, a peaceful day.I know about the painThat, she is going throughBecause the loss of “Mom”Is the saddest, that is true.Sometimes, it is a blessingWhen their “life” is in declineNot, what it used to beWhen, “everything” worked fine.But still, it hurts so muchWhen Mother goes awayWhen you know you won’t see HerFor, forever and a day.But the memories will be thereAnd will help, to get you throughWhen, you’re thinking of MomAnd, feeling kind of blue.

Dear Mother, please don’t take away my baby.I’m young, alone, my husband is in jail.But there’s a wonder in what fortune may beGiven us, though time its wisdom veil.Please help me be a mother much as you areBy being but a mother once removed,As I become the daughter that I thus farHave never been, by love and labor proved.And let me love as you did my own child,Making the best of what I wrought in pain;For once fate leaves, one ought to think it smiled,Rejoicing in what one would rue in vain.I would not give my child to another;I need you now, but only as my mother.

I want to say how proud I am of youThat you have broken free of your addiction.It’s something I don’t know that I could doWere I so sorely tried by your affliction.My years of growing up were on my own,As you were in the belly of your beast,The two of us indifferent and alone,Most in need of love while loving least.How sad! That you and I have lost those years:I, of childhood, and you, of your only child.But now’s the time for joy and not for tears,For you are well, and we are reconciled.Whatever life may bring or time may prove,Know that you will always have my love.

Hubblescopes aloft will see anew;Again, the centers of our souls will change.Perhaps the things we most believe are true,Ptolemylike, will strike our sons as strange.Years of light, long hidden by the air,Millennia of thought will burst and scatter;Overhead, the stars will still be there,Though shifted from the poles that really matter.How wonderful to know that what we knowEach mystery unravels from below,Reveling in nights beyond the stars!So let it be with every day:Discoveries themselves always betray;A fresh idea files older thoughts away,Yet spins the ancient tales of life on Mars.

For me, two mothers aren’t one too many:One’s for real, and one’s for other things.Remember: there are those who haven’t any,Missing their one chance at angel’s wings.You’re the one most free to mother me,Giving without worrying I’ll be spoiled.Often my real mother “has to see,”Dreading I might get my future soiled.More than just an aunt, what’s in your heartOpens doors within where I can goTo learn the difficult and gentle artHappiness embraces those who know.Each moment that you love me makes me whole:Rare is she who can so grace a role.

I know I haven’t been an easy child,But love for you lies underneath my whims;There is no way I could be tame or mild:I need sometimes to shout and wave my limbs.You’re the wall I need to test my height,The countervailing force to test my strength,The chain I hammer at with all my might,Even though you have increased its length.It’s tough, I know, to be both Mom and Dad,To raise me all alone, just hit or miss;To have to play at once good cop and bad,And give me grief before my goodnight kiss.But love against the odds is stronger still:I need your fierce, proud love, and always will.

I thought I knew a thing or two of beauty:I’ve known your love since I was hours old.But now I bear myself the awesome dutyThat love turns into joy, and joy to gold.How precious to experience your pleasure!To be on both sides of the deepfelt glance;To know so well the moment’s gift full measure;To be both lead and partner in that dance.No child can be but grateful for her childrenWhen loved so well as to know well to love.No mother can but hope her prudent passionWill move a heart to move as her heart moved.The love you felt for me I now can feel,Which makes it not more lovely but more real.

Happy Mother’s Day to my dear Mum,Author of my personality:Pleased, I hope, with what you read in me;Pleased, I hope, with episodes to come.Yet now I, too, would get some pleasure fromMaking you the book in which I see,Of all the players in my family,The central character, whom I would plumb.How beautiful to move in that direction!Each to each a separate source of pleasure,Reading in the other’s happiness,‘Mid much description, underlying love.So would we deepen the connection,Discovering new passages to treasureAs we follow time towards tenderness,Yearning for what years unread will prove.