#maternal
Before I knew the names of things,
she had already placed them inside me.
Not gently.
Not cruelly either.
The way rivers place stone
inside their own current.
My mother tongue was older
than my mother.
It passed mouth to mouth
through kitchens, funerals,
snowbanks blue at dusk.
There were words reserved
only for weather and death.
Others for cattle, scripture,
and the careful folding of disappointment.
Love itself arrived disguised.
Eat before the road.
Take the heavier coat.
Call when you arrive.
The tongue of mothers
rarely announces itself as tenderness.
It shelters instead.
Like earth.
Like wool.
Like a hand resting briefly
on the back of a chair
after an argument.
I inherited vowels worn smooth
by generations of cautious people.
People who survived winters
by lowering their voices.
Even silence had grammar.
At the table
the dead continued speaking
through idiom and proverb,
through old regional pronunciations
nobody consciously preserved.
The language remembered us
better than we remembered ourselves.
Sometimes I think
a mother tongue is less a language
than a place returned to in the dark.
A lamp above the sink.
Boots drying by the stove.
Someone clearing their throat
in the next room.
And every sentence I write
still walks back there somehow,
mud-footed and uncertain
in the blue evening snow.
May 9
May 9, 2026 at 5:56 PM UTC
Il était très **** dehors était noir
Comme un maudit soir
Qui allait porter: angoisse et tristesse
Pour une mère soudainement tombée en détresse
Les escadrons de l’obscurité viennent d’exécuter
Son enfant de vingt et une années
Il avait prétendument un couteau en main
Et l’innocence d’un jeune matin
Fatal dans sa pensée. La technologie
Peut, par hasard, améliorer ou détruire la vie
Plusieurs cartouches tirées, le jeune homme est tombé
Criblé de balles réservées pour des condamnés
Les assassins nocturnes ont abattu une autre victime
Ce qui est pire, c’est qu’ils ne vont pas payer pour cet horrible crime
C’est abominable, le noir est souvent injustement ciblé
Le racisme est un cancer qu’on doit éradiquer
La mère est inconsolable
Ses douleurs implacables
Ses larmes intarissables
Et ses peines incommensurables
C’est triste et amer, la mère va enterrer son enfant
C’est drôle, affreux, criminel et méchant
Les malhonnêtes « foliciers » sans remords
Viennent de causer un autre mort
Ils ne connaissent pas les souffrances
Endurées par une mère pour donner naissance
A un bébé en bonne et parfaite santé
Quelle tristesse! Quelle calamité!
C’est une autre tranchée forcée
C’est vraiment déchiré un cœur jadis farci de fierté
Voir une mère pleurer dans une telle condition
Est écœurante pour toute la famille
Et les amis
Qui brûlent dans un enfer imbibé de pénibles émotions
L’ignorance et l’immaturité sont deux plaies
Qui jamais ne sèment ni l’amour, ni la paix
Les pleurs de la mère sont intarissables
Ses douleurs inimaginables
Ses peines incontrôlables
Et la mère inconsolable.
Copyright© March 2011, Hebert Logerie, Tous Droits Réservés
Hebert Logerie est l’auteur de plusieurs recueils de poèmes.
Sep 4, 2025
Sep 4, 2025 at 11:02 PM UTC
I liked me better when
you hated yourself.
Now that you have found
beauty, I have lost my own.
Mar 7, 2025
Mar 7, 2025 at 6:44 PM UTC
My grandmothers are
standing there ,
mother , maiden , crone .
Wisdom , transformation
and they are guardians
of the doorway .
☆
Black Crow waits patiently
outside .
New Moon in
Scorpio ,
the blank rune , Judgement ,
spirits of the earth and
material existence .
☆
Destiny is power and using
Chaos ,
like the three fates ,
or cutting a thread ,
only realising it was always
this way .
☆
My grandmothers are
standing there .
Sep 30, 2024
Sep 30, 2024 at 8:42 PM UTC
Somewhere between eggshells and landmines
Were the creaking floors upon which I played
Carefully, for her wrath could be detonated
At a footfall, just a bit too heavy
From a word uttered under the breath
A mess left too long in the sink.
But her embrace was warm,
Wrapping around me like sheets from the dryer
And when she put on pause her own life
To tend to me at my sick-bed,
Her eyes showed only tender love.
“My baby goat,” she would say, affectionately,
And leave a kiss upon my feverish brow.
She is a living contradiction, my mother:
Churning disapproval shattering the gleam
That she put into the hopeful eyes of a child
Just a moment before.
I lived in perpetual uncertainty,
Never knowing which mother I might see next:
The raven or the hen.
And now she looks at me with disappointment,
Wondering aloud why her children fear her.
Her capriciousness eroded away any trust
And much of the fondness as well
Her hot-blooded adoration
And her ice-cold tantrums
Have mixed so long now
All that is left is
Lukewarm like the bathwater
Left over from when the
Baby was thrown out.
Sep 11, 2023
Sep 11, 2023 at 7:16 PM UTC
My mom is mischievously, mysterious,
with her momentum.
But perfectly perpetuating her
purpose on earth.
Never wavering wondering, or
wishing for it all.
Only knowing.
She is in her palace.
Filling her chalice.
Toughening the callus,
That's needed..
Necessary negativity to neutralize,
The highs and balance the lows.
Candidly correcting the corrupt
With a simple smile.
Lifting the leveled and the loveless,
With ease.
There is no tail,
That could make a wail.
Only mine of I fail,
But, I won't walk that trail.
I'll take the teachings and trials,
She will give.
Learning love and limits
With a laugh.
I just want to say,
Thank you
For my life and the love you've given.
You're perfect, just for me.
May 11, 2022
May 11, 2022 at 6:04 PM UTC
Rock-a-bye, baby, in the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
Thou eyes may shine bright,
Though the way you’ll see
Crosses in cradles
Several, nay all, sin ‘fore thee.
Your hands could be firm,
Though what should you grasp?
Little to hold onto,
Little will last.
Your ears may be wishful,
But what would they hear?
“‘Only’ thirty three deaths today”,
Not one reason to cheer.
You could have been my world,
I can’t raise you in this one,
I love you my darling,
I’m sorry my son.
Rock-a-bye, baby, in the treetop
When your beat goes,
The pain will all stop
...
Who am I to take a life?
I know not of the pain,
Do I own the right,
To take from thee, no name?
Your skin wouldn’t be fair,
Nothing in your life would be,
But polar opposites you’d bear,
In articulation you’d be free.
Perhaps we could escape the hate,
Escape the world’s woe,
God will have to hold the gate,
I cannot wait to see you grow.
Rock-a-bye baby, do not you fear
Never mind, baby, mother is near.
Jul 14, 2020
Jul 14, 2020 at 6:57 PM UTC
I have so much love to give
Like the sun gives to us
A light so bright, we can't even see the other side.
But pieces of my heart
Have burned
And flown away
From ash to dust.
There's a light
that still shines through
In my hopes of belief
That there could be a me and you
I empty myself out
And let the universe fill me
With her maternal love
Each breath of oxygen
Mother Earth fills our lungs.
So we must thank her
And never forget
Her love is what keeps us
What bounds us
What keeps our hearts beating
As one.
Apr 20, 2020
Apr 20, 2020 at 3:31 AM UTC
Dawn
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth and Laura, and all good mothers
Bring your peculiar strength
to the strange nightmarish fray:
wrap up your cherished ones
in the golden light of day.
Amen
Originally published by The Lyric
Keywords/Tags: Motherhood, good mothers, maternal, nurturing, caring, strength, courage, love, compassion, tenderness, human angels, golden light
Apr 3, 2020
Apr 3, 2020 at 1:53 AM UTC
I miss you mother.
Let me return to
The fetal position,
Nestled in you
Next to your heart,
Bathed in warmth
By the blood between us,
Clinging together as if
Our very lives depend upon it.
Nov 28, 2019
Nov 28, 2019 at 11:50 AM UTC
You flew away before I was ready
My heart misses the flutter of your wings
My ears your sweet harmonies
Your memories are drowned in purple
I was your sunshine and now you are mine
Our beats syncopated
I’ll meet your eyes in a different time
Aug 12, 2019
Aug 12, 2019 at 11:19 PM UTC
You were planned from the start
You, my little one
Treasured deep in our hearts
A precious gift from heaven above
You, my little one
Have our undying love
Feeling you move brings us great joy
You, my little one
Our precious baby boy
I pray every day God keeps you safe
You, my little one
I pray you find his grace
Be calm, my darling, it's time to rest
You, my little one
In my womb, your own tiny nest
My arms long to hold you, to feel you wiggle
You, my little one
To tickle your toes, to hear you giggle
I long to gaze into your newborn eyes
You, my little one
I would give my life
ALesiach © 07/25/218
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 4:17 PM UTC
Hush, my little one, sleep awhile,
Nestled 'neath my heart of love
I'll sing to you, sweet and low
'Til heaven streams, bright with gold
Hush, my little one, sleep awhile,
My love abounds to guard thy sleep
Drifting away 'neath silvery moon
While stars twinkle away your gloom
Hush, my little one, sleep awhile,
Tender kisses caress thy cheek
Hush'd by my gentle whispering
Lull'd in the land of dreaming
Hush, my little one, sleep awhile,
There is nothing to fear
While I am near
Hush, my little one, sleep awhile
ALesiach © 07/2018
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 2:47 PM UTC
I don’t have work
I don’t have school
I have no books to check in or out
Yet still,
you get to sit around
Look at me,
my swollen black circles
under my lifeless eyes
I’m so tired
I see the shy little nerd stacking books again
“Yeah.”(chuckle)
She’s my kryptonite now
Who knew leather books could be so comfy to lay one’s head?
Jun 22, 2019
Jun 22, 2019 at 3:44 PM UTC
Maternal and material
Material needed
for factory and
human life's
lifelong requirement
for material.
For matte to be
created
or the empty innovativeness
of mind
required material.
For apparel business
first basic thing was
material.
Also for love
attraction and sentiment
are two material.
A childless wife's
sister's solid
material is
her maternal.
Which may not
out the hope for the
wife is only for her
maternal.
A daughter's relation
with wifeless foreigner
ma turn into maternal.
A sister's relation
with her brother's boyfriend
will turn into maternal.
Jan 14, 2019
Jan 14, 2019 at 9:39 AM UTC
The day after my childhood self wouldn't leave the old house and cupboards, I sat in the dark with my boxes and these pretend grown-up versions of myself.
I'm losing my favourite memory, I cant find the right side of paper but I will always flip the page. I know I am stuck. Still seeing the image of your skirts disappearing around old pine door frames, try to run after the hem to ask you where I left the right box. Can't even find the words to ask.
Sometimes the last thing we ever get to say is “goodbye, old house”, we don't always get a chance to kiss it on the cheek before we leave.
That nothing we lost once was inside you the whole time.
I remember the private hospital rooms, we know that for that much money you have to switch of the part of you that won't stop dying.
You still visit.
You still visit in the form of robins following me home, of ghosts enclosed whispering in a space reserved,
breath suspended in mid air,
the very last one.
I made a room of ghosts for you.
And if I could have stopped time
I would have paused it in the middle of this room.
Open the yellow memory box one last time.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 7:41 PM UTC
Our eyes
spit the blame like darts playing home
to poison gas
tell yourself
you never liked that shade of emulsion anyway
don't look at
her, your
mother's ghost. Not in the eyes.
no paint left
to fill
our indents, syllables die on
our tongues and
this is
the very last time, nothing beyond
fake flowers, marble
make this
make sense, wait for the sun to get up
so you go
with it
if your mother's ghost still loves you
she will follow.
Tell yourself
you could feel her keeping you alive, you're
scared that you
could get
hit by a bus and she wouldn't be there
to save you.
I almost
lose your name from my mouth, which one of us died
in this room?
The yellow walls got painted over when after seven years, Dad
accepted that his childhood sweetheart wasn't coming back.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 11:47 AM UTC
Oh how I love you,
Dear Unborn Baby,
I've been waiting
For you.
Holding you in my arms,
Is all I'm yearning,
For I've been waiting,
Since 22.
I can't wait
Any longer
To see
Which part of you
Resembles me.
I want you
To be better
In every way baby,
Better than me.
I've seen how
This world can be deceiving.
I want you to trust me,
When I hold you close.
I can't wait
For this world to see you.
When you're ready to take off,
Take my love with your wings.
Oh how I love you
Dear Unborn Baby,
I've been waiting
For you.
Holding you in my arms,
Is all I'm yearning,
For I've been waiting,
Since 22.
Sep 11, 2018
Sep 11, 2018 at 8:05 AM UTC
I am here
Expelled at last from that warm darkness
Fluid replaced with air
Crying out so that the nurse knows,
So that the world knows,
That I have arrived.
I look up and see a Goddess
A true beauty with loose ringlets
And glimmering skin
But sacred tears are falling
From her golden eyes
A deity like her deserves jewels
I am just a tiny speck of dust
Floating around her palace
I am not what she asked for
I want to apologise
But all I can do is wail
I am sorry, dear Goddess
She looks down at me
And she smiles
And in that moment I’ve been blessed.
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 7:20 AM UTC
She's a new born under
protective cover,
with a shield like no other from her
umbilical Mother.
Covered from head to toe by the
artists jacket.
In clear polythene for you to admire,
not attack it.
Or the mobster paid in Lira to stop
anyone going near her,
when all that she needs
is the unconditional love
from the bosum that
feeds her.
Poetry by Kaydee.
Jul 9, 2018
Jul 9, 2018 at 12:35 PM UTC
She wears long sleeves to hide her scars he smokes a cigarette in the back of his car. They’ve been pushed to the point of wanting it all to end. They have an unborn child which they don’t know yet, it was a one night stand that left her with regret.
They don’t feel like they can raise a child but those two pink lines make her feel better now, it’s a fresh start and a second chance for him to be a better man than what he is now and what his father was growing up a chance to wake up every morning next to the woman he loves.
She’s afraid of the mother she will be, afraid that her little girl will be sitting in her room alone comforted by an empty bottle and a blade with so many tears streaming down her child’s face just like hers did.
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 5:00 PM UTC