I fell in love with poetry
as babe upon my mother’s knee.
She fed me rhymes to help me sleep,
read sonnets that would make dad weep.
She dressed me in a poet’s cloak,
and sang to me each time I woke,
like Sappho, singing with her lyre,
as I lay dreaming by the fire.
Then Life dealt her that bitter blow,
and sorrow in her soul did flow.
She could not voice her verse no more,
nor nurse me as she did before.
Her sonnet-son she used to love,
she slew that dear, defenseless dove.
For mother, in my broken youth
was widow, torn by tragic truth.
I’m still in love with poetry,
Its rhyme and rhythm’s heavenly.
For there’s still sacred symmetry
with songs my mother sang to me.