TheBanyanTree: Ode To Mother

[smack58 at nycap.rr.com]

Today on the anniversary of my mother's death I wrote this poem:

Ode To Mother

MOTHER

There was a point
Between my mother and me
When I let go
The tether that bound us
Child to mother
And became a counterpoint
Separate 
A sounding board
A friend
A trustee of her womanhood
Of her tragedy


When I listened
And absorbed her persona
When I finally understood
That she existed 
Beyond her husband
Beyond her children
That she existed
Alone 
And unto herself


I slid away those days
And nights
And left the childish me’s behind
A metamorphosis came about
Into a fellow human being
With a compassion
An empathy
A sympathy
That allowed me to
Be absorbed
Into her very essence


Somehow we were one
In those long night hours
In which we talked
One!
I knew
I felt
I entered into her feelings
Her sensations
Her loves
Her hopes
Her dreams
Her fears


Her horror at a war 
She had never fully understood.


In those night hours
I became my mother
My mother
Became me
We wore each others’ clothes of life
And I knew
For the rest of mine
I would always understand her
And she, me


Not the understanding
Of everyday living
Or acts of the mundane
No!
It was the understanding
Of who we were in our souls
Who we were as individuals
Separate from one another
Separate 
But one—