When Mother dies, you know
what has always been so.
Where Mother goes, you go.
Inside her body, she allows
your body to grow, shares
her being, so you can be.
Her labor propels you
from that small space
to a larger place.
Her body nourishes yours,
then weans you away in
that one way.
You obey her rules
sometimes, or not.
You love her, honor her,
or not.
But when Mother dies, you know.
You know what has always been so.
Where Mother goes, you go.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Linda Enders lives in Marin County, CA with artist/physicist husband, Bernd Enders. She has lived in Marin for nearly fifty years but has her roots in Oregon. In college she studied music, psychology and writing. But it was back when her high school English teacher, Mr. Norman Bethany, read aloud the poems of e.e. cummings–and made sense of them–that she fell in love with poetry. She writes with Prartho Sereno and the Poetic Pilgrims at the College of Marin. Her work has been in Marin Poetry Center’s annual anthology, and the anthology “Changing Harm to Harmony,” edited by Joe Zaccardi.