Mother's Day Poem
[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]
This post is arriving a day late and a dollar short, which is both a common idiom and 2014 movie staring Whoopie Goldberg that I have barely heard of and never watched. I *technically* wrote this poem after Mother's Day but it was inspired by my childhood home and my mum, so here we are.
Mother's Day has origins all the way back to 1914, when it was made a national holiday. A lady named Anna Jarvis created Mother’s Day and then spent the later half of her life trying to revoke it due to it's unsavory commercialization. I'm not sure how many mother's desire half-dead roses and a kitschy card and cardboard chocolates, but like every other holiday, commercialized it has become.
Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of their mother goddesses. In modern times, we honor our mothers most commonly with the aforementioned items and phone calls. More calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year, causing phone traffic to spike by over 37%.
Before the Civil War, Jarvis helped start "Mother's Day Work Clubs" in West Virginia to teach women how to be mothers. After the war, Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” to unify northern mothers with southern mothers. In modern times, mothers are relieved of the burden of national unity and are instead saddled with trying to raise their children while working while remaining romantically sound while staying healthy while having hobbies while sleeping, etc, etc, etc. I'm not a mother, but it seems like a lot of work.
So, here's a poem I wrote a day after Mother's Day. Here's to all the women who are mothers, or who act like mothers, or who are on their way to being mothers.
Mother's Day
"an apple a day keeps the doctor away,"
my mother told me
pushing me high on the tree swing
so I could touch the oak leaves
so high I could taste the sunlight
and her laugh rang like a jingle bell
I didn't tell her then
but I loved her so much
later on we ate lunch on the front steps of the farmhouse
a cold cheese sandwich and green apple slices
"an apple a day," she promised
she promised
would keep the doctor away
an apple a day
and some string beans from the garden
sweet corn, carrots, peas, and zucchini
red peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries
in the evenings we walked along the fence line
cornfields folding in every direction
"walking is good for the heart," she would say
"good for the lungs"
when I grew tired I'd hold her thumb
and we'd turn towards home for lemonade
and an apple a day
keeps the doctor away
an apple a day
keeps the doctor away
"an apple a day," she promised
keeps the doctor from calling with a diagnoses
I didn't know darkness could eat up the woman
who walked through the forest calling to birds
the woman who sang me to sleep
the woman who gave me
lavender sprigs and told me to breathe
I didn't know cancer could stop her cold
so I told her I'd keep eating apples
if she'd stay a bit longer
an apple a day keeps the doctor away
keeps the cancer from spreading
keeps me sane in heartache
keeps the hole in my chest from spreading forever
keeps my mother here,
in the hospital bed
here, on the sagging brown couch in the big farmhouse
here, in the garden plucking ripe string beans
here, on the soft snow path in the dusky gray forest
where she told me her secrets
told me she'd love me forever
told me we'd run to the river one day
and the sun hit her face
and she laughed jingle bells
cast a spell on the trees
here, in the moment she promised
an apple a day keeps bad things away
here, a decade later on mother's day
when we ran to the river and laughed
until our voices wove together
in a tapestry the color of brilliant oak leaves
on a warm summer day
with the sun on our faces
and the worst of the darkness
far, far behind us
P.S. Read about how mothers carry a inordinate emotional load here, read or listen to Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown, or listen to The Best Day by Taylor Swift.
xoxo
Sarah Rose