On Father's Day, for Mom

Because this year, your strength and the ability to mourn Dad makes room for us all to feel the same sadness. And because he would love a poem celebrating you, the woman he loved most.

Mother 

Dogs run to you for the pleasure of being touched.
Children seek out your willing companionship;
even seeds burst their dichotomous heart
to grow closer to those small, expressive hands.
You are the weaver at the loom,
black fertile earth receiving sun and rain,
the beginning of all things,
and like the earth,
you bear scars so deep,
they can never be fully excavated,
only worn.

But you know how to overcome, to persist.
Not earth--no, water.
Nothing can mark your core.
You seep into the heart of a thing
just by following your nature.
You are an ocean of love,
whose endless waves lap against my body.
Because now I am the land
(I have grown to become you)
and you are the deep,
defined by wise movement,
still eternal and fathomless to my child’s heart.