Who Mothers the Mother?

by lightink

Poem of the Month Contest Winner

1
When nighttime fills the air with mystic balm,
I sit in tufted darkness in my chair
absorbing feelings that my soul becalms –
I rock and rock away my daily wear.

My baby's swishing breathing fills the room
with notes of peace – a secret lullaby.
Our hearts are synchronized – they share a tune
that will remain just ours as time ticks by.

But past the clouds of my maternal bliss,
beyond the haze of fading yesterdays,
I see another baby face amiss –
the child I used to be cuts through my daze.

She hopes to bathe, too, in my love at last –
a refugee from my elusive past.

2
A refugee from my elusive past,
my childhood self looks at the grownup me
Her olive eyes are vastly overcast –
with tired sadness – like a silent plea.

Feeling worthless, her back is slightly curved
beneath invisible ancestral weights.
She moves through life with energy conserved
on shaky ground that often oscillates.

Oh, how I wish to kiss away her pain
and show the treasures of her spotless essence –
to let her soak in loving warmth again,
to fill her gaze once more with luminescence.

I'll reach through time to make her feel secure –
for I'm the wound, and I'm the only cure.

3
For I'm the wound, and I'm the only cure
my spirit recognized for all these years,
my tenderness learned how to reassure
a skittish soul that bears amorphous fears.

I soothe myself and lull the ones I love.
If I were Atlas, I would hold the Earth
on my maternal lap or right above
my heartbeat's song to dampen all the dearth.

However, when the nightfall's flames ignite
the tiny lantern-stars up in the skies,
I drop my strength, confiding to the night
that I'm, too, just a child in grown-disguise.

I'm strong all day – but who will mother mom
when nighttime fills the air with mystic balm?

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Poem of the Month
Contest Winner

Recognized

We all have moments like this...

Written in Ray's (Mountainwriter) Sonnet class, which I highly recommend.
This is an English sonnet sequence - or as Cat would say "not a crown, but a tiara" :).

In the second sonnet I was experimenting with trochaic substitutions
"Feeling worthless (her back is slightly bent)" breaks the meter giving more emphasis to the content.
I could have written "with worthlessness, (her back is slightly bent)" to maintain the meter... I chose not to do so in order to give emphasis to the thought.

Also, the same sonnet has two feminine endings.

Image: courtesy of Bing images.

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