Forgive Me, Mother
Forgive me, Mother, for the roads I chose,
where foreign winds forgot my childhood name;
I carried home beneath my winter clothes,
yet every mile returned me more ashamed.
Forgive the coins I gathered in the rain,
the ones that reached your hands but not your door;
they bought the bread, but could not ease the pain
of nights when you still listened for my step once more.
Forgive me, Time, for passing without sound,
for silvering the hair I should have known;
while I was searching for a distant ground,
you taught an empty chair to wait alone.
The lamp burned low beside the window glass,
one place was set though no one crossed the yard;
each evening watched the seasons slowly pass,
while hope remained the last and quiet guard.
Forgive me, Mother. Bread became my creed,
I learned the hunger carried by the road;
I fed my hands, but left your hands to bleed
beneath the weight of every hidden load.
Now I return. The walnut guards the gate,
its roots still hold the footsteps I withdrew;
the walls have learned the patience of the late,
and kept a place where every dawn was new.
Your hands remembered me before your eyes,
they knew the child that distance could not erase;
some grief is deeper when it never cries,
and leaves its shadow resting in a place.
I found my childhood sleeping under dust,
between old books and shoes too small to wear;
the clock still carried on its quiet trust,
as though my leaving lingered in the air.
No sermon ever held what you could give,
no hymn could carry what your silence knew;
your prayer was simply teaching me to live,
by breaking bread and giving half to you.
The fields bowed first. I only bowed too late,
when frost had entered every sheaf of corn;
the tallest trees still carry in their weight
the memory of the seed from which they’re born.
So if the earth should one day speak your name,
before these hands have thanked you as they should,
I’ll plant my sorrow where your shadow came,
and grow the mercy only mothers could.
And when my own door opens onto night,
when all the roads are silent at my feet,
may I still hear, beyond the fading light,
the voice that called me home before I’d leave.
Copyright © Florin Lacatus | Year Posted 2026
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