You are as young as ever
I saw any woman
and carry the courage
which is your gift to me
the way a swan
carries water to her young,
in breast and blood and voice
that no sheen of polished silver
can outglisten.
You are the mother of my poems.
Cats come to sleep on your shoes
and plants crowd your home
like spellbound children
come to sweeten your life’s pools
with their agonies and resurrections.
I am the fifth moon in your sky,
most near your womb, most painful
to fill with light and swallows
in the dark night,
most devoted and grateful,
most mad and incomprehensible,
most thankless.
My brother is a thunderstorm,
my sister is a rose bower,
the two small ones
who returned to silence
were dew on a field stone.
You honor us all.