This Week’s Poem: The Mother’s Lullaby

As it’s Mother’s Day in the UK on Sunday, this week's poem is for all the mothers out there and anyone who cares for another.

As I say in my recently published poetry book, Circle of Life, “mother” is a verb as well as a noun. We all, male and female, have the capacity to mother others.

And we can each mother ourselves.

This is a lullaby not for a child but for a mother. It's one of the twelve poems in my Mother's Day gift book.

Read it aloud… and slowly.

The Mother’s Lullaby

Whisper 
to yourself 
your names
for your children 
or child. 

Let those soft sounds 
sound in your mouth 
like the hiss of sands 
kissing water 
in the undertow 
of the tide. 
Shush. 

Let their names 
so heart-chosen,
mean all they mean. 
Kiss them as they cross 
the lips of your understanding 
to offset the spasms of the birth
the ache in the arms
the fears of the leaving. 
Shush. 

Let them offer 
the hope you find 
hard to hope now
for yourself: 
to walk in wonder, 
veiled in the memory 
of the gods, 
feeling the pull 
of their old, soft sound 
on the soul, 
held in play 
with the call 
of the world. 
Shush. 

Whisper 
to yourself 
your names
for your children 
or child. 


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