She has the softest hands on
Earth
Despite years of working,
moving, lifting, building,
Clapping, and almost chopping
off fingers while cooking,
Her green thumbs have not
only planted flowers and vines,
the maple trees that shade
our yard,
And too many tomato plants to
count,
But also have grown and
nurtured a
scholar, musician, and
activist
out of a curly headed sapling
Over twenty three years of
planting seeds of knowledge
and
Allowing me to decide how to
sow them.
She lives in books and comes
alive in between
Pages and paragraphs,
Between her imagination and her
doodles in the margins,
Finding solace, humanity, and
sometimes even herself in
The heroes, villains, flora,
fauna,
and fairies she meets on her
way.
She may very well be one of
them,
Possibly a gnome.
Turning greys into Technicolor,
bringing depth into people’s
two dimension lives,
My mother makes it clear that
you don’t need a PhD to be
wise.
Nor do you need more than a
desire
to know a lot to learn a lot,
and that there is so much
that
you don’t know that you don’t
know
in addition to what you know
you don’t know
and what you actually do
know,
so there are very few reasons
to stop trying to know more.
She’s earned every speck of
silver in her once Arizona sunshine blonde hair,
Through working, through
fighting,
Through learning, laughing,
dancing,
And through standing strong
In bad times that felt like
landslides,
And in stressful times when
every option
was uphill both ways in the
snow with no shoes on.
She knows that there is
strength in
letting yourself be
vulnerable,
And that weakness is less a
failure or a flaw
Than it is a call for self-care,
Be it a nap, a movie, a
margarita,
Or dancing in the living room
to Led Zeppelin.
And she slings the weight of
the world over her shoulders
As though it is as light as
air,
Willing to hear out and help
anyone
carry their baggage along the
way,
And she hears you, and sees
you,
because you are interesting,
and you have something to say
that she’d like to listen to,
Even if it is the saddest or
oddest thing she’s heard all
year.
More than she knows, my mom
has taught me.
She’s taught me that there
are
so many ways to love people
Beyond being in love with
someone,
That someone’s worth has
nothing to do
With how many dollars are in
their bank account,
That it is okay to fail, as
long as I’ve tried,
That no matter how much money,
effort, and poetry
No one can make someone love
them if they don’t,
And instead of trying to
document
every lie I’ve been told,
I should focus on keep short
the list of lies that I’ve told,
Not because honesty is the
best policy,
But because transparency
feels better than guilt,
And “what ifs” sting longer
than “oh wells.”
And that I can’t be afraid of
change no matter
Who or what I’ve built I’ve
world around.
So I’ll shout three cheers to
moms,
Especially mine,
Who sang me Peter, Paul, and
Mary
Instead of Mary Had a Little
Lamb,
Now, I’ve got a hammer,
I’ve got a bell,
And I’ve got a song to sing
In appreciation and
gratitude,
Because whether I am one,
I am two,
I am three,
I am four,
I am five hundred miles away,
I’ll always know where home is.
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