Listening to my Mother is an Act of Learning to Love Myself

 

Listening to My Mother is an Act of Learning to Love Myself

 

When I learned I was pregnant, I was scared

because I was the shape of the moon

and I didn’t think that my body carried enough light

to make the night sky shine.

 

Whittling a daugther from your flesh

feels like pulling the last hope out of your own body

and putting it into someone else.

 

You pray that it will grow taller

and taller like the sunflowers who thrust their faces toward the sun.

 

Birth is not the hardest thing I have done.

My body has been opened to reveal something sacred

more times than I can count.

 

I hear you call me in the mornings and the evenings, your cries

enlightening and louder than the pain I’m afraid I gave you.

 

Sometimes I think of your eyes and am filled with deep joy

because they shined with wonder and belief

 

before the world filled you up with grief, hatred and doubt; you smiled

and curled into me because you were used to being safe beneath my heart.

 

Daughter, there will be days that you feel forgotten but do not

allow the seeds planted in you and in me to never get to see your light.

 

When your head droops, like the sunflowers at night, remember it is

only this season.

 

Turns out your skin is made up of water

and sometimes the most natural thing to do

is cry.

 

And I will collect your tears and throw them into the night sky as stars,

so that your petals, those fragile and determined limbs of yours

will believe

 

in something greater, like the wide blue of the ocean that

is merely a reflection of the truth inside of you.

 

The day you left my arms, I somehow felt forever broken and full.

The rainbow ahead of me, may it be the prisms of light, refining

the dark chasms you will tread but are to never dwell in.

 

May the mighty flood pushed out of me give a promise

that is renewed every time your eyes

open.

Katelyn Durst
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One thought on “Listening to my Mother is an Act of Learning to Love Myself

  1. I love this image: :Turns out your skin is made up of water/and sometimes the most natural thing to do/is cry.” You use such rich imagery to honor mother. I absolutely feel connected to this piece. Thank you for sharing it with us, poetess! What a beautiful gift from the Most High.

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