They designated a single day
For appreciating you in May
With gifts and commercializing
For profiteers always advertising
Gifts for motherhood? What a joke!
Please, do not my ire provoke
To think of bonding
To imagine loving
To know affection
To recognize devotion
None surpasses them
Mother’s a true gem
Where would I be
Without your act of love
That made me be
From infancy’s cove?
Your sacred womb
Had me lovingly entombed
Floating and exchanging
With you juices of love and life
In stately darkness swimming
For nine months, free of strife
You relished my kicks, nourished my being
As pain and I incrementally jived
To the final upsurge
Before I emerge
You put all pain aside
Wanting me by your side
As your first act of love
Outside, via which inside I strove
Then you fed me from your bosom
Abandoned all so I could blossom
To you I always came first
No matter what, you came last
All done with not a whimper
All smiles, in my pain or chatter
Was there ever a joy
I had that you did not share?
Did I suffer a single throe
That was not in your prayer?
Was there such a friend
Like you to the very end?
Long after you’re gone
Your essence in me will flow
Alive or not, thy will is done
No love so utterly shows
As yours, bar none
Full, pure, with grace it flows
My love for you is for ever
As yours is to the last
All days belong to Mother
Not just in May alas!
Else don’t even bother
To seek love from any Other
You epitomize all goodness
You symbolize all kindness
You signify all selflessness
You eschew all selfishness
But how could you not
Else your own flesh to blot?
©Alwi Shatry, All Rights Reserved, June 19, 2017