Mother - from playground to wheelchair

An Epistle on Turning Fifty

First you lose the impatience of youth,
linger over emerging bulbs
and let the phone ring.

Mirror mirror on the wall,
from the first aching step out of bed
to grinding the next day’s coffee,
I am my mother after all.

I rub the bump I’ve developed in my palm
and gauge the knob on my wrist.



Not that this is me, mind you, but my mum is home from the hospital (yay!) and the infection she picked up there is gone from her broken leg, and I felt like sharing this poem with you. She is navigating her own home with a walker, and I take each aching step with her.

Life, a circle. From the playground to the dance floor to the yoga class to the acquiescence of a cane to the necessity of a walker to the resignation of a wheelchair, but back to the walker now! How far can we go?

Happy Mother's Day weekend to all of you who balance your lives like flamingoes on one leg, make time for creative endeavors, and carry the world on your backs.