Good counsel guards where love alone may fail,
It trims the winds that swell a reckless sail;
A mother's womb gives life, wise words give sight,
And guide young feet from darkness into light.
The breast gives milk to make the body strong,
Good counsel keeps the wandering heart from wrong.
A child is born by one, but raised by two:
A mother's love, and wisdom firm and true.
The hand that warns is kinder than the rod,
It turns young feet from dangerous roads to God.
The womb gives life; wise counsel shapes the soul,
For truth, not time alone, can make one whole.
Blessed are ears that welcome wisdom's call,
For humble hearts are slow to slip and fall;
The child who treasures counsel while still young
Will leave behind a life well-lived and sung.
Softly, starlight slippers through silver leaves,
salving slender branches where willows keep their weeping vigil.
A sighing wind weaves grief’s misty purple veils,
hesitantly floating before sweeping down;
valley tears, fern quivering, blend with those heavy clouds weep.
Moss in variegated green feathers, paves paths primitive,
moonlight lends gray gloved hand to guide faltering feet,
trembling on cliff-sharp edge of blackest night,
stumbling forward, tracking an unmapped grief labyrinth.
Heart of mine, spent by the merciless beat,
lean hard upon hoarded memories, bittersweet.
Life, after such sharp parting, shields her flame,
tended as a mother tends her sleeping dear,
softly repeating through the night one poignant name
that only she who bore the pain can hear
in accents of the heart so sweetly clear,
echoing faint chords from the heavenly sphere.
Perhaps time dulls the sadness, keen,
or drives it deeper to a place unseen.
Copyright, July 1, 2026
my mother says I feel too much
like it is a flaw
like love
should be measured
With teaspoons
not oceans
She cannot understand
how I carry entire skies
Inside my ribs
And call it
Living
Tiny heartbeats resonate with mine with every breath taken in unison --
You dwell in me as much as I in you.
Sweet summer child mine, I don't know any different than to be yours -
The world loved you at first sight while I fell the moment I felt you in me.
You sat next to the fire pit
Sipping your martini, looking for secrets at the bottom of the glass
I bounced on the old trampoline
Dirty
Covered in sticks and leaves
And I jumped avoiding the small rips in the polypropylene
As the sunlight faded
And the fire flies came out
Neither of us even had the thought
That in just two months
One of us would be dead
And the other would be
Running
So fast in the opposite direction
But right then
The air was full of mayflies and the smell of bug spray and summer
And the season is too new.
Too young for its very own tragedy.
I really loved you then
I’ve loved you since I was old enough to remember your face
And I asked you if you were happy
To be there with me
And you told me that you had never been happy And you didn’t elaborate
And I cried myself to my bedroom
And fell asleep with no Kiss goodnight.
You might not like me
after you read this—
but this poem has been
simmering in my soul for years.
If what I say
doesn’t sit well with you,
please know:
I’m just a girl who loves Jesus,
and a girl with a pen.
They come first—
this little soul.
They come before
the teacher’s job,
the nursing degree,
before the sales assistant role,
or the receptionist desk.
If you would go hungry,
or be left without shelter,
then this poem
is not for you.
But if you can survive
without the pay—
then could you dare to say:
I can…
but I chose not to.
Because, instead—
I chose you,
little one.
Mother, child are you bleeding
Watching the world come down
The doors are locked, the streets are cold
Are you buried in the world's soul
Spiritually entwined
To live until you die
Mother hold my soul
And sew my pockets full of rubies
Take the candy from my teeth
And be please buried with me
Child holder of my soul
Asking help and talking tall
Bury my hands in your eyes
And let the both of us die
Caring earth holding faces
Of those we both hold dear
Hold us close
And bury both
Inside the home
Where we had grown
Mother, child are you bleeding
Watching the world come down
The doors are locked, the streets are cold
Are you buried in the world’s soul
Spiritually entwined
To live until you die.
I only cry on the inside;
Lamenting the child who's hiding there.
No one can know what is buried.
It's a weight that I must bear.
You may marvel at my strength;
Such fortitude is often rare
But all alone late at night,
I sink into despair.
The child will not let me sleep.
She needs the comfort of her mother.
I've searched a lifetime to replace her
But a mother's love is like no other.
So, I will strive to ignore the pain
And do better for my son.
I will be the mother I seek.
The child within and I are one.
February 23, 2025
Get out of that or I'll skin you alive she would say
Me and that dog would head for the woods right away
We were not abused
Just a saying used
Because me and that dog got a hug at end of day
You can never be ready, she said
I wasn't what you expected.
Listen,
No one told me "postpartum depression"
Until I saw you in the kitchen
With my baby sister at your feet,
White hot tears,
A savage grief,
Out of nowhere.
I was told to go play with my dolls.
Listen,
I thought it was my fault,
So I hid in my dark closet.
Listen,
When you couldn't care for us
I watched for you each day
With blue-brown eyes, mix of two loves,
Seeing your ghost,
The shadow of your blue coat,
In the window,
In the swirling, aching, endless snow
At the edge of winter.
Listen.
I am forever my mother's child.
Some say your words act as a balm
A fleet of sweet tidings
Sailing into a gray dawn.
With white sails riding
On the heels of a grand mast
That sways without invoking
A need for true ballast.
It seems as though your rage
That spars with mine among the waves
Has now chosen to disengage
From me among the graves...
Of sailors lost at sea
Displaced by blithely prying winds
And now what will become of me?
Whose multitude of sins
Imply that my veracity
Contends with your tenacity.
Hear Harry’s hysterical, startling scream.
Little spooky spiders made him run to the extreme.
It wasn’t a fairytale fantasy dream;
the cobwebs created a crazy football team.
Mother thought she’d heard their scary scheme,
so she planned to question the Queen.
I thought they were merely mean,
moving to our happy home, creating a scary scene.
She misses the time before she was a mother,
the life she once had now hidden, under cover.
Before pasta and paint, and plastic packed lunches
replaced lie ins and coffees, and trusting her own hunches.
She yearns for washed hair and fresh eyes without lines,
but knows, deep down, it’s for him her heart pines.
Coldest day yet, 'fore new bairn was christened,
mother's muse foretold as hearth embers failed.
Scripture held tight, she quietly listened,
as cradled creature withered, weeped, and wailed.
What secret kept a mother by proxy,
pallid face adorned in humanlike form.
Life borne so different any other,
unabashed at life's ex utero norm.
Green-gilled coveting mother's pride they wait,
singing forgotten changling's mirthful strains.
Off sibling snatched by fae's strange fostered fate,
sad imposter never thrived, yet remains.
Mother's cast away changling unwanted,
yet child's love remains true and undaunted.
I was so glad to welcome you
And it was such a joy to hold you
Never wondered how life could’ve been without you
For I wish My womb could never have carried you
Feed baby feed on some milk
Do not cry with fear i am right here
Close your ears listen to what I want you to hear
If I am to protect you with my life I would cover you in arms
I know you are starving and my body is drying
I can’t produce any more milk for I am starving too
Oh child
If I had knew tomorrow would bring war and harm you
I would never wished for your existence
My heart is bleeding my eyes are flooded with bloody tears
Can’t imagine how lonely you might be
Are there no mother angels please cuddle my child and tell him not to cry
Oh my dear child
I plead for peace
I plead for Justice
I plead for calmness
Is it not what we are fighting for less worth than our lives
Than the young children
Is pointing guns at one another necessary than a talk on a table
A talk on a table would save our tomorrow
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