For Mom

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.