Before I was myself you made me, me
With 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, me
With dreams enough of what I was to be
And hopes that would be sculpted by the
years,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,
Relinquishing your powers gradually
To let me shape myself among my peers.
Before I was myself you made me, me,
And being good and wise, you gracefully
As dancers when the last sweet cadence
nears
Bit 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, me
By slowly stepping back to set me free.
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 well-known 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 true
Than that which cradles innocence
unstained.
Happy Mother's Day to My Darling
Wife
Happy Mother's Day to my darling wife!
All my love to you this special day!
Pleased to have you perched upon my life;
Pleased to feel your passion in our play!
You are the muse of my else bloodless song,
Mother of my evening and my moon,
Of all the Earth, the place where I belong,
Trellis on which my frail emotions bloom.
How might I bring you basketfuls of beauty,
Eliciting the smile I would see,
Reflecting in the midst of drudge and duty,
'Twixt world and woe the simple fact of we.
So might my love be all you need to know
Deep within our long-lived afterglow,
A certitude on which your joy might rest,
Yearning for the life with which we're blessed.