Response to the end of summer

I have eaten
the last
plum not from
the icebox

but from
the tree you
planted
long ago

Be happy
it was delicious
so sweet
and so warm

Love song for a human

A young man knocked on my door. He had a card. It said he was disabled. He wanted to sell me a tea towel I didn’t want. It was expensive. I had little money but I believed his story so I bought it. Later I read about men who drove groups of youngsters into suburban areas to exploit the easy kindness of the well-off. I felt cheated of my money but not my compassion.

The next time a young man came to my door with a card saying he was disabled I did not buy a tea towel. I would not be duped a second time. I sent him away with a lie, saying I did not need anything. I kept my money but I lost my sense of honesty. I felt uneasy.

The time after that another young man came selling tea towels. With a card saying he was disabled. He bounced a basket ball on my doorstep. I felt cross. He looked young and fit. He seemed as uninterested in selling the tea towel as I was in buying it. He seemed to want something else. I didn’t want his tea towel. I told him to go. I kept my money that day and gained a fear. Of needy young men  coming to my door.

 

Mother's Day

I was going to post a short-hand message on the worthiness-wall that is called FaceBook but reconsidered on the grounds that some things should remain private. Going for the relative obscurity of a blog is hardly an improvement but I trust the people who read this will know it's not flag-waving sentimentality.

We seldom hear a mother's point of view on Mother's Day; cards and posts are  generally full of eulogies from children of all ages. And I too am grateful to my mother for her many sacrifices. For her, motherhood was sacrifice. Like most religious concepts, sacrifice turned out to be a disappointing investment.

Today, I want to say that, living in times of choice, I was able to choose to have my children. There's a difference there between my parents' generation and my own; the greatest benefit of which I see as the absence of sacrifice. Sure, all parents have their share of sleeplessness and poverty but it has been, hopefully, not foisted upon them.

Many parents, I suspect, have moments of resentment and regret that their lives have become compromised (how could they have known) but imagine if the choice was not theirs?  For earlier generations the burden of forced responsibility must have weighed heavy. Imagine the resentment of a woman whose light and lithesome body was taken over, coupled with the relative freedom experienced by fathers; it must have felt like an entire life had been sacrificed for the sake of a child. Happy Mother's Day. One day of recognition when the serving girls and boys went home and what joy, I wonder did they bring?

Today here's my voice. I am a mother. I have three children. I chose to have them. I wanted them. I like them. I love them. I am proud of the people they turned into. They have already given me far more than I ever gave them. They have nothing to be grateful for. But there will be trouble if the threatened bouquet of pink carnations sprinkled with glitter ever arrives. There are limits to a mother's love.

If I thought I could, I would always watch over them. It's my job.