In a perfect world, every day should be Mother's Day... and Father's Day... and Earth Day... and Cinco de Mayo... and Talk Like a Pirate Day (aaarrrggghhh!) - having just celebrated the first of these occasions this past Sunday I can say, from experience, unconditional love always seems to manifest, albeit unintentionally, with strings attached. I tried to kick up the peace barometer and turn down expectation mode - not perfect... but better. I also read up on the history of what the day used to be before Hallmark took control - that's more like it!
SONG: The One Who Knows by Dar Williams
BOOK: The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
POEM: The Lanyard by Billy Collins
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
QUOTE: "The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness." ~ Honoré de Balzac
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The One Who Knows (Dar Williams)
Posted by Susan at 8:23 PM
Labels: Billy Collins, Dar Williams, Honore de Balzac, Margaret Wise Brown, mother
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