Our mother and daughter reunion is winding down. Although our mother was not with us in body she definitely was with us in spirit. Sunday we sat around our sister's dining room table and wrote poems to her and then read what we had written out loud to each other. It was very healing, and sharing our poems seems to have brought us closer together.
(1)
Mom was like a bear because she was politically driven.
She is the color of the changing leaves in autumn,
She is like the wind as she breezes in.
She is the sound of the explosion of a cannon,
She smelled like the perfume smell of Liz Taylor,
She was as cold as ice.
She tasted like sweet coffee; lots of milk and sugar.
She was the daughter of struggle,
I wish I had been with her when she died.
(2)
My mother is like a humming bird,
flitting from one flower to another without staying long at any one.
My mother is the color of the undersides of storm clouds,
reflecting brilliant white one second and then swiftly changing to black the next.
My mother is like an earthquake who's ground I did not stand on securely. I never knew when that ground would crumble beneath me.
My mother is the sound of waves on the beach,
sometimes crashing over me and threatening to drown me;
other times gently massaging my toes.
My mother will always be the smell of Coty's Emeraude,
who's scent still brings back the feeling of pride I had whenever I saw her dressed to the nines.
My mother is the feeling of sadness and loss of a life lived in fear and regret.
My mother is like the texture of a rock smoothed by years of being tumbled over the sandy bottom of a raging river.
My mother is like the taste of cotton candy
who's flavor would disappear just as it was dissolved by the warmth of the inside of my mouth.
My mother is the daughter of Athena who's wisdom she was not able to pass on to her own daughters.
My mother is like the Langston Hughes poem "A Dream Deferred,"
A raisin in the sun,
Gone and never to return.
(3)
Mom was a wounded dog under the porch, survival it's only instinct.
She was the color of ink spreading thru the holy water
as an innocent catholic school girl runs giggling down the hallway.
She was the snow falling silently under the empty corner street light.
She was the ringing telephone nobody answers.
She was the smell of dirty ironed clothes and hairspray.
The taste of turkey TV dinners for Thanksgiving.
She was the daughter of broken hearts and the mother of unbroken daughters.
She was a dream I had as a child that took me decades to wake up from.
She was an emerald, brilliant, flawed, a tragic mess of perfection.
(4)
Mom is an ostrich,
too scared to see the world close around her. It's safer to hide.
Mom is brown, the complex mixture of colors and experiences overlapping.
Mom is the wind. Capable of moving things, changing them, bending them to her will. Yet you can't touch her.
Mom is hunger, always wanting more, but not quiet able to get her fill.
Mom is the sound of righteousness-
"Say it loud-we all should be proud."
Mom is the smell of coffee, hair spray, cigarettes, and Dippity-do. The smell of safeness to a sleeping child.
Mom is smooth like Teflon. Impenetrable on the surface but very delicate and easily hurt.
Mom is the taste of spices!
Complex, spicy, smooth, exotic, and never plain.
Mom is the daughter of her shame. Born in a time of blame;
an umbrella she could never step out from under.
Mom is the mother of love. Always there.
Always open. Always caring. Always proud. Always love.
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