Home

A Mother's Love

by Glenn Currier

Just a moment
passing in a store
an infant secured gently
in the softness
of its mother's arm and breast.

Its lower lip quivering
the first hint of a frown
tiny blue eyes watering
soft high-pitched sound
not yet a squeal.

Mother serene and assured
not a whit of resistance
to her baby's aborning cry
instead a smile
of total acceptance.

I knew it would intrude
but I yearned to stop
and soak in this precious twinkle
in the budding life
squirming in her embrace.

Later that night
in the twilight
between exhaustion and sleep,
that encounter laid upon me
like a heavy woolen blanket.

An encumbrance of sadness
wrapped in contempt for me
drifted in from a foggy past
hanging on a thread
attached to a cloud.

What happened to me
to fuse within - a certainty
of my unworthiness
and a crawling fear
that she would leave me?

08/11/2007

Posted on 08/11/2007
Copyright © 2024 Glenn Currier

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Genevieve Sturrock on 08/11/07 at 10:57 PM

words fail me...your rendering of the baby and mother was so beautifully tender. i wasn't prepared for the last stanza...which brought tears to my eyes. beautifully written.

Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 08/12/07 at 12:34 AM

Poignant. Tenderly and thoughtfully written. (I have often pondered how little ones react to early situations. I recall discussing some childhood incident with my brother (both of us long since adults). Our outlook on the situation was almost totally opposite. Something that may be traumatic to one baby or very young child is accepted or ignored by another.

Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 08/19/07 at 12:14 PM

Glenn, I am touched, astounded, to my foundations and beyond by these words. Beauty beauty resides therein their song and the beast of I who reads and listens and weeps.

Return to the Previous Page
 

pathetic.org Version 7.3.2 May 2004 Terms and Conditions of Use 0 member(s) and 2 visitor(s) online
All works Copyright © 2024 their respective authors. Page Generated In 0 Second(s)