. . . Recognizing that she was not always old, so here are two when she was in her late teens. A thanks to Joanna for asking if I had any pictures of Mother when she was young.
My mother had beautiful red hair.
Agnes with her mother, Augusta.
Archive for the ‘Mothers’ Category
On This Mother’s Day . . . 5 comments
The Cord Is Really Never Cut Leave a comment
Daughter Jill and Mother Joy Celebrating Joy’s Birthday
Sharing one of life’s present moments. — Images by kenne. July 28, 2010
Mother, daughter
the cord is really never cut
even after death.
— kenne
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Thinking About Mother On Her 100th Birthday 11 comments
Agnes Willie Poe would have been 100 Today. (March 3, 1918 – September 8, 2006)
Happy Birthday, Mother!
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A Gift for My Mother 1 comment
My mother, Agnes — Image by kenne
As we near Mother’s Day, 2015, much will be written, gifts given and loved shared. Remembering Mother is truly a daily exercise in life. Over the last ten years, this blog has had many postings on mothers. One of my favorite poems about mothers is one by Billy Collins, titled, “The Lanyard.”
THE LANYARD
The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room
bouncing from typewriter to piano
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
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 more suddenly into the past.
A past where I sat at a workbench
at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid 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 teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold facecloths on my forehead
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 archaic truth,
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands,
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.”
— Billy Collins
Becoming is Superior to Being 