The Giving
I am a mother, young, determined, doubting
Who am I?
Who have I become?
I’ve grown apart from the girl I was
A girl with a laughing heart and a hopeful
spirit
Slender at my waist, hips and breasts curving
Idealistic and full of romance for the world
I was first a wife
And then I was a mother
Trying to fit together the puzzle of my parts
There is a tugging that I am certain
Every mother before me has known
The mourning of one’s own self
Separate, possibilities to the left and right
Now are gone forever
My hips and breasts are wider and a little too
full
My waist seems lost
My eyes
are tired, I feel old sometimes
Then there is my daughter, my heart
I carry her on my solid hips as I once did in my
womb
My arms encircle her, she fills up my eyes
Here. Take them. I offer, for they are
all for her
My hands always working for her - have them
I carry her in my soul - this is for you also I
say
This is the secret of motherhood –- the giving.
The giving of all you have to your own blood
A sacred sacrifice most mothers do from the
first breath
Where is that girl I once was?
In another life she’d be traveling, tossing her
curls
And her inhibitions to the four winds
In my life I am a woman watching my daughter
With heart-stretching love I’ve never known
She presses her forehead to mine and giggles
I smell the milk on her sweet breath and giggle
back
A secret just for us –- this giving
The gentle spring sun lights up her face
She tosses her curls and her inhibitions to the
four winds
And runs free and laughing, arms outstretched to
me
And this girl, this woman
This Mother opens her arms.
- Denise Cooper Smith -
