Of Heartstrings and Other Such Things

When I would be there with you 

but I can't

And it must be enough

to fill the air with prayer 

and want

I think about the first day

When I held you close to me

Not knowing then how

riveting

A mother-love would be

...and how we never leave in full

the child; though miles may spread

twixt them and us

ah, 

Heart-strings are love's

never-ending thread

They bind us to our off-spring

and its tug, 

keen and unspoken

Comforts and reminds us

that heartstrings

cannot be broken

Janet aka, mom

There's just enough going on to remind me of this poem written the other summer;

Labor-pains 

When they tell us it’s over,

'It’s a girl; it’s a boy'

We're about to discover

As 'new-mother joy'

Washes our faces

  That with daughters and sons

Love's labor-pains

  Have now just begun

Oh, the labor of love

The ebbing and flow

Of white-knuckle clinging

  While learning to let go

Is a sacred experience

Simple word cannot grasp

As we teach them to fly

While we cradle and clasp

...I close my eyes now

Straining to recall

The curve of your face

When you were so small

  But all those thought pictures

I sealed in my heart

Have somehow grown blurry

In love’s ceaseless art

I trace Time's air hungrily

For it is a foe

Pulling you from me

Yet, I’ll never let go

For holding is not

A mere, physical grip

I'll hold you forever

As from my arms you slip

The call of life

Is unlike any other

It tugs tender off-spring

From arms of a mother

And this is the way

  Love surely must be

For we cannot stay

On our mother’s knee

Yes, when they tell us it’s over

Childbirth’s groaning and pain

We are about to discover

It never will be again

For travail is an inhale

  Exhale hug and kiss

  Bestowing a life-long

  Bitter-sweet bliss

© Janet Martin