Your weekly slice of Poetry

Happy Mother's Day! I owe much of my love for literature and poetry to my own mother. I owe much of my inspiration in poetry to my wife and her beautiful work of mothering our two children. As such, this week's Poetry Pie will feature poems specifically involving mothers in their God-given role. Though a shorter edition, I hope that these will be encouraging to all readers, both mothers and children of mothers (which, I suppose, is all of us.)

My Mother

Ann Taylor (1782-1866)

This sweet poem praises the author's mother for her attentive care, worry, and instruction. Each stanza is a quatrain, rhymed AAAB with the final line ending with the refrain: "My Mother." It is written in iambic tetrameter.

To My Mother

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

One might be surprised to find an Edgar Allan Poe poem in a list of mother-themed poetry. Whatever we may expect from Poe, we find here a beautifully written sonnet for his mother-in-law. Though not his own mother, the bond between Poe and his wife (who had died) had brought him into a great love for her mother.

Song for a Fifth Child

Ruth Hulburt Hamilton (1921-2018)

This poem features a mother "blissfully rocking" with her child while a whole house-load of chores are crying out to her. The tasks of a mother are never ending. How great it is, then, that the very thing that brings so much work is also what brings so much joy!

This light poem has a nursery-rhyme feel to it, something that is achieved by the anapestic foot that it is written in. This rhythm (along with the references to Little Boy Blue, Pat-a-cake, and Kanga & Roo) is very fitting of a lullaby.

Rest

Abram Newcomer

A child's first home is its mother. There is such a rest, then, for a child to be close to its first-home. This lullaby is written in anapestic dimeter, the same foot as the previous poem.

Fragile Beauty

Lydia Newcomer

Woken by his smile and his lips upon my head
With a whisper of, “I love you” as I rose up from the bed.
I could hear my children laughing from the other room,
Their precious mumbled chatter ringing out a simple tune.
These good and perfect moments, which welcomed in my day,
Have been weaved through my work, my rest and play.

Thank you, Father, for this life of fragile beauty.

Written spontaneously one morning by my wife, this brief poem is a grateful sigh to our Father who sustains our life and gives us each beautiful moment.

I hope the rest of this day is restful for you all. Take care!