Like a Mother

I feel like a mother
when I cut the crust off your sandwich bread
careful to leave enough to hold some carefully planned nutrition
My heart is full when we talk together about spirit
curled under your feathery purple and red blankets
and a drooping white canopy
with the only fear being that you will soon figure out
what my unfulfilled longings are
before I do
I can hardly bear it when you are mean or quick to those who love you the most
It’s like seeing an old movie about myself that I should have walked out on
I feel pride when you leap into life with passion
and hunger to read and write to the rest of us
and instantly grasp the things
it took me more than forty years to figure out
I anguish that evil must be explained
before it explains itself and shatters the balance
of fear and knowing
I never cared for trading your sleep for mine
Only saw pain in the challenge to create energy from sleeplessness
making sleep more valuable than it deserves to be
I do miss having you at my breast
those peaceful brown eyes
wide and full as your mouth
I am not like my mother
perhaps more like hers but with more of a fight
I will continue to scribe the changes
and feed you with my power
and fruits of the earth
lend a hand to the new world, the millennium
with a sword of truth and a lifetime of poetry
ballads sung with the thrill of creation
love thick and bittersweet
with a promise
to keep the light on
- Debra L. Alt, “Like a Mother”, 1999

For Eternity

I ache with love sometimes
for music,
touch,
nourishment;
and I long to know
the source of
the lack of longing and aching.
I need to be by the water
to cool the heat of the longing
so it can better withstand
a body’s temperature
and distill the moment
the one just before the ache is realized
to capture it
with a thought
or with a pen,
for eternity

- “for eternity,“ July 2000

Piercing the Equilibrium

they are grown now
the little fingers that grabbed
the straggled hair
covering your arms
that I cradled
while you sucked and puckered
oozing milk like blood
filling your nervous system
with mine
eyes content to rest
on all the moods of a worn out woman
shifting her being, her foundation
like an earthquake
to accommodate your own
eyes that now dart away
from my careful glance
arms that recoil from my touch
lips that smacked at the scent of my body nearby
now form words of pained confusion
with bitter fuel poised as love
piercing the equilibrium
I gather around me
built from years of visions
and rhythmic silences
still detecting a trace
of the nectar smell
through the crown
that my chin circles
when I can get close enough
without startling you into memory
of the betrayal
destiny etched as a script
you wrote long ago
when you chose me
as your vessel
to birth you into time
to carry the burdens of truth
to yet another level
I can only hope to share
when you come back
on a day I envision
you larger, fuller
thick with wisdom
moving by instinct
toward our newness
fresh with feminine color
when those moments of anguish
will fade
with the glow of spirits
eager to move on
in a journey of cycles of life
memories that infuse me
with hope
I hold as a beacon
to guide me through
this terrible pain
that gnaws my skin
and leaves me trembling with the fear
I may be mistaken

- “piercing the equilibrium,“ July 2000