I had no idea
Well maybe a distant sense
Of what "in love" meant
Before you arrived
I'd heard parents and teachers
"Invest in the children"
If only we did, they said, we'd have such a brighter world
I'd felt blissed-out delight
While dancing in the sand
Or to Michael Jackson in my living room
Felt that infinite wonder feeling
That "anything is possible" feeling
An echo of a beautiful world inside my chest and bones
A world babies are born knowing
You smile when you sleep
In between breaths, a dream
Surfaces joy on your face
It lights up even with your eyes closed
You know this world of freedom
Rainbows and ripe peaches
Ribbons in the sky
And as I watch you
I become devotion itself
Here on Earth for only one purpose
To love you
To see to it that
When you stir in the night
You don't need to scream and sob to be heard
When your belly senses hunger
You open your mouth to find just what you need
When you open your eyes
There is light there to greet you
And your ears
They aren't troubled by loud noises and voices
And your skin
Feels the decadence of my love for you with every single touch
No hurry, no forcing, if I can instead be
calm and allowing, following your
natural rhythms rather than
The fabricated speed of life
forced fast
For an economy that doesn't even
make life better anyway
I'm not fooled by the claims
That say I should "toughen you up"
Does the wind toughen up flowers or
Simply blow with them?
I am here to love you
Not by the book
But by heart
So I see now
it starts with the children
I see that in a loving world
Every moment of a human life
From baby emerging, into
Every patience generating moment after the next
We are, at our best, here to create
A world where children thrive
In this world, my inner child thrives too
And the innocence thrown away
By so many adults is
Reclaimed, as wounds heal
Regrets dissolve
Watermelons fill the fields
Of summer mouths
Here, in our living room
Your warm face rests on my chest
Your body curls around me
Tuning into Mama's drum beat heart
And you know
Little one
That you've made me a mother
And that I can never stop thanking you
And that the oceans must grow deeper now
To make room for all this love I feel
Mama
