A mother they say

I am a parent
a mother they say
but
I don’t feel that way
because I was raised with parents who expected you to obey
at all times and if you didn’t
what happened next depended on the day and the child
sometimes nothing happened at all and
I thought it got better after a while but when I was older I heard about things that happened after I flew away and well
some things don’t change
I come from a generation of fathers and mothers who trapped the wild of their sons and their daughters with half-dead hymns chanting from broken lips
so when they say
I am a mother
I don’t feel that way
if anything
I am a guide holding their hands and showing them the light even when it’s very hard to find
or not there at all
I am a gardener planting seeds, pulling weeds
but knowing that there will always be weeds
the trick is to learn to grow with them
and I hope that when
these little loves grow
they see a mother who is whole
a wild mother with a wild love
and when they say
She is my mother
I believe them

from my third poetry book, Made of Earth.