Poetry Tuesday Returns In Honor Of Mother's Day

So, I haven't posted any poems for a long time. I'm feeling the need to start again. And why not start for Mother's Day?

These are two poems from Carol Lynn Pearson's book "Beginnings." (You may be getting the feeling that I like Carol Lynn Pearson. Um, I really do. I love the work of many other poets too, but Carol always seems to sing the same song my heart sings.)

The first poem "Investment" is dedicated to my younger sister who will soon be giving birth to her first child. I'm so thrilled for her I could burst.

The second poem "The Unwritten Poem" is dedicated to my mother, who has given so much to her children. She loves to write and has always told me she'd love to write more. I think she should! Until then, she just keeps on encouraging and loving me and everyone else in her family. She has given me so many poems.

Investment

How enviously

I watched

The rose bush

Bear her bud --

Such an easy,

Lovely birth.

And

At that moment

I wished

The sweet myth

Were true --

That I could

Pluck you,

My child,

From some

Green vine.

But now

As you breathe,

Through flesh

That was mine

(Gently in the

Small circle

Of my arms),

I see

The wisdom

Of investment.

The easy gift

Is easy to forget.

But what is bought

With coin of pain --

Is dearly kept.

The Unwritten Poem

Sometimes --

In a sitting down moment

On a day

Of stove-heating the sad-irons

And layering newspaper between

Quilts to keep us warmer --

I heard my mother say,

"I wish I had time

To write a poem."

And then she would start

The potatoes.

When I was twelve

A thing happened that

Broke my heart --

A school thing I've forgotten now.

For hours I cried my humiliation

Into a handkerchief.

Next day my mother

Brought in in from ironing --

That handkerchief --

And gave it to me special.

"Here," she laid it in my lap.

"You've had it in happy times

And in sad.

There'll be more of both.

Keep it, and it will remind you

The better follows the bad."

She went back to ironing,

And my fingers traced

The little flowers of fading blue.

I can remember other poems

She left me, too.