Although a daughter, I write this as a mother.We’re both mothers now, of childdaughters:You, a grandmother forced to be a mother,And I, a widow, alone with my fatherless daughter.Death has thus shaped both our lives in waysWe would not have chosen. Yet life is still the bright,Painfully lovely thing it was always:Our children like dancers on a dark, splendid night,Needing our loves as I needed yours; your loveThe same song as ever, a lullaby I rememberSo well from my time in your arms. We moveIn slow spirals towards the stars. SeptemberHas weeks like June, yet is closer to the fall.Love has no answers, yet its beauty answers all.

Happy Mother’s Day to a dear aunt,As loving as a mother ought to be,Pleased to act when parents won’t or can’t,Pleased to act when moms go out to sea.Yet yearning cannot make an aunt a mother,Melding aptitude with milk and blood.One finds joy in giving joy to others;The other has her joy, if she but would.Heaven knows the way across the darkness,Enduring through all manner of regret,Returning, turning to the fount of stillness‘Mid mountains of accumulated debt.So may you this day be satisfiedDespite the grace that fortune has denied,Alive with love, both given and returned,Yet blessed with nothing less than you have earned.

Happiness is like a sunny day:All one’s bitterness is drowned in light.Praise be the light, though it must pass away,Perhaps because compassion needs the night.Yet when one feels like swallowing barbed wire,More or less does nothing for the pain.Old memories return as if on fire,Tormenting one with unforgiving shame.How can I, who love you, come inside,Each wound to bind up with an ointment rare,Restoring the once effervescent bride‘Neath misery no happiness can spare?So shall I sing to you of all life’s beauty,Doing through the night my daytime duty.A song of love may not bring back your noon,Yet in your darkness, let me be your moon.

Happy Mother’s Day to those whose childrenAre those for whom their love must be their womb,Pleased to labor in a common gardenPruning plants they would themselves have sown.Yes, praise to those whose love is notwithstanding,Mothers who could not be mothers, yetOf charity and need came to the calling,Taking from the world what joy they would.How well the will can ride an errant wind!Each fate is but the field of our endeavor.Reason may resist our heartfelt ends‘Ere we share our passions with another.So may we all, through sacrifice and love,Daily do what will our spirits prove,Asking only for what we might give,Yielding not our labors but our lives.

A Mother’s love, is sure to findA way to comfort, ease your mind She knows just how, to build you upWhen you’re so down, and can’t look up You love the way, she makes you feelLike you’re so special, her ideal Her thought must start, with God aboveTo bring such caring, with such love And as it flows, like gentle rainIt surely helps, when troubles pain The love from mine, is oh so clearI only wish, she was still here Her warming glow, is missed each dayEven though, I seldom say But she did leave, her gift behindTo help me through, when I may pine And that’s the feel, known deep insideHer faith and love, I still confideby Roger J. Robicheau

A Mother’s love, is sure to findA way to comfort, ease your mind She knows just how, to build you upWhen you’re so down, and can’t look up You love the way, she makes you feelLike you’re so special, her ideal Her thought must start, with God aboveTo bring such caring, with such love And as it flows, like gentle rainIt surely helps, when troubles pain The love from mine, is oh so clearI only wish, she was still here Her warming glow, is missed each dayEven though, I seldom say But she did leave, her gift behindTo help me through, when I may pine And that’s the feel, known deep insideHer faith and love, I still confideby Roger J. Robicheau

Have no fear, for love is all around you.All come helpless from a common womb.Perhaps you do not know that love surrounds you.Perhaps you do not know that you’re in bloom.Yet mothers, too, are children, ever loved,Minded by the living and the dead,Old enough to give, as time has proved,The need no less, though time and tears have fled.Have faith that love’s a mystic tide that flowsEqually to and from the heart,Returning, turning as it comes and goes,‘Mid moon and moon your sea, your song, your art.Sing, then, of this moment of your giving,Deep within the ebb and flow of living.All you feel is what was felt for you,Yearning your own yearning will renew.

Have no fear, for love is all around you.All come helpless from a common womb.Perhaps you do not know that love surrounds you.Perhaps you do not know that you’re in bloom.Yet mothers, too, are children, ever loved,Minded by the living and the dead,Old enough to give, as time has proved,The need no less, though time and tears have fled.Have faith that love’s a mystic tide that flowsEqually to and from the heart,Returning, turning as it comes and goes,‘Mid moon and moon your sea, your song, your art.Sing, then, of this moment of your giving,Deep within the ebb and flow of living.All you feel is what was felt for you,Yearning your own yearning will renew.

A villanelle for Mother’s DayShould take me just about an hour:Writing it is child’s play.Because I know just what to say,And rhyming’s quite within my power,To write it should be child’s play.Yet plain speech is not my way:I look for leaves to shade my flower,This villanelle for Mother’s Day.I do not wish to sound too fey,Obscure, mystic, gushy, sour–Arggh! Writing’s never child’s play!Yes, childish! To my dismay,Far beyond the allotted hour,This villanelle for Mother’s DayDawdles on. Let me just sayIt plain: I love you, and so end ourVillanelle for Mother’s Day.(Well … writing it was child’s play.)

How might one be a mother without children,As though the contract weren’t writ in blood?Perhaps one’s fate is more received than given,Placed where one might seize it, if one would.Yet what is cannot be undone.Make of it the music of your dance,Organ raptures ripped from ancient stone,Transforming life to beauty from blind chance.How might one be a mother in one’s heart,Embodying within the act the dream?Reality is part terrain, part art,‘Twixt earth and will more lithe than it might seem.So might the childless their children bear,Delighting in a discourse no less rare,As one makes of one’s fate a gift that mayYield grace attainable no other way.

Happy Mother’s Day to my dear daughter:A mother, too, and yet my baby still!Praised be the love that lasts, and always will,Perched like a star above the windswept weather!Years pass like clouds beneath the things that matter.Mothers grasp the grace within the fill,Older than the stars themselves, that spillTowards eyes whose tears supply the maelstrom’s waters.How lucky we, to share it in our bones!Each a mother, holding what will proveRedemption’s gift, too dear to be redeemed‘Ere time renew the miracle again.So may you, some Mother’s Day, your ownDaughter, now a mother, send such love,Alive to more emotion than you dreamed,Yet far beyond the realm of joy and pain.

If I could give my mom the worldOr anything she wanted,I’d give her my own heart and soulAnd leave my own heart haunted.I’d take upon myself her lifeWith all its strife and pain,And let her ease into some spaceWhere she could live again.The pain for me would not be pain,At least not for a while;For I’d be doing it for her,And I would see her smile.I wish that I could take her heartAnd cleanse it with my tears,And make her sorrow go away,And answer all her fears.I wish, I wish, but then I can’t,As I watch helplessly,And take her in my arms and sayI wish that it were me.But loving is a hard, hard way,With all the pain it brings.And yet there is no other wayTo touch the heart of things.

A Mothers LoveTo some love is just a wordTo me it’s a feelingA feeling I get every time I look into your eyesA feeling I get when I realize your my momA mom who loves, shares, A mom who inspiresUnconditionallyWhat’s that?That’s loveA mothers love, but only you would knowAnd meYou returned that love time and time againPossibly to much, nevertheless you didThankyouThankyou for being there when I needed you mostFor being my rock when I should have been yoursThankyou for believing in me, even when I doubted myselfFor being the one person I could trustNo matter what, no matter whereBut most of all thankyou for being youmy momA mom I am so proud to claimI love youNow and foreverSubmitted by Trevor Duggan

No Love like a Mother’s LoveThere is no love, like a mother’s love,no stronger bond on earth…like the precious bond that comes from God,to a mother, when she gives birth.A mother’s love is forever strong,never changing for all time…and when her children need her most,a mother’s love will shine.God bless these special mothers,God bless them every one…for all the tears and heartache,and for the special work they’ve done.When her days on earth are over,a mother’s love lives on…through many generations,with God’s blessings on each one.Be thankful for our mothers,for they love with a higher love…from the power God has given,and the strength from up above.by Jill Lemming

Before I was myself you made me, meWith love and patience, discipline and tears,Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,Allowing me to sail upon my sea,Though well within the headlands of your fears.Before I was myself you made me, meWith dreams enough of what I was to beAnd hopes that would be sculpted by the years,Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,Relinquishing your powers graduallyTo let me shape myself among my peers.Before I was myself you made me, me,And being good and wise, you gracefullyAs dancers when the last sweet cadence nearsBit by bit stepped back to set me free.For love inspires learning naturally:The mind assents to what the heart reveres.And so it was through love you made me, meBy slowly stepping back to set me free.