Mother

It is almost midnight and I find I cannot sleep.  This is becoming an all to regular occurrence of late.  Usually I toss & turn & listen to the radio, eventually lulled to sleep.  Tonight I thought I'd try a different tack.  I've been trying to write the following poem for a couple of months now, and after many false starts and much stalling I think, maybe, I almost have it. (Are there writers out there who are ever fully satisfied with the work they produce?  Is it ever well and truly finished?  Or do you just have to call it good and move on to the next project?)
In any case, tomorrow we are heading to my home town to celebrate my mother's 70th birthday.  These last few have been difficult years, but we are all still here, still standing, still moving forward.  It is my prayer we will celebrate many more birthdays together.  Happy Birthday, Mom, I love you.
Thank you for everything you are & for everything you have done for me.

There is a picture

tucked away in a dusty album

fading with the years

my mother and me...

There is love implicit in the photograph

Smiling, she leans in toward me

a story book on my knees

a halo of babycurls and footie pajamas

I am on her knee...

she is looking at me, her hand on my shoulder

but my gaze is drawn somewhere else

There is love implicit in the photograph

and though memory had me perched on her knee

as though eager to go

Too soon I think I bounded from her embrace

eager for whatever held my gaze even then.

Life and living; newer more enticing loves

it is not so

Her hands shield me though her arms do not hold me back

And yet

though you cannot see them

then or now

there are cords that bind my heart to hers,

the first love I ever knew,

and for all my pulling away they hold us close

I wish, more often now than ever,

I could take my story book

and, fresh from my bath in pyjamas,

clamber into her lap

Or, as time slowly turns the tables

take her in my embrace and hold her close

There is love implicit in the photograph

and though memory had me perched on her knee

as though eager to go

it is not so

Her hands shield me though her arms do not hold me back

Her lap cradles me

Her eyes watch me

Her love surrounds me