by Len Pennie
What is a mother if not the foundation
Upon which we can pour every drop of frustration?
The root that exists just to nurture the tree;
If her family is happy, who cares about she?
Who took seeds of her hope she decided to sow,
for to nurture them carefully safely to grow,
Into people exceeding her best expectations –
A life now de?ned by its own limitations.
If I have a daughter, I hope she’d forgive
Me in?icting the world within which she must live;
The labour demanded, the e?ort expected,
The agency that will be cruelly rejected.
Putting dead last, what was once the initial,
To render her body and joy sacri?cial.
I think of my mother, in some other place,
The lines of sheer worry now etched on her face,
And imagine how di?erent her life might just be;
And I weep for the woman who toiled making me,
Who risked her own death in creation of life,
To carry out duties of mother and wife;
May we meet and, as equals, regard one another,
And know you were a person before I called you mother.
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