Mother's Day

"As large as the role is that our mothers have played, the word 'mother' is more powerful when used as a verb than as a noun." Stasi Eldredge, Captivating (guided journal)

"Her children arise and call her blessed . . . " Proverbs 31:28b

I miss those regular walks with my mother
Under the shimmering tunnel of jumping spring leaves,
When we say it's for exercise
to burn the guilty calories of past edible transgressions
But really, we just want to talk,
Those circus conversations
that spin round and round
like the shaky squirrels at our feet
that climb high in the trees every time
she teaches me something I wish I'd known before,
the gentle whisk of our thighs as they shush-shush in unison
and the sharp pat-pat of our bounding march
like the slow, subtle ticking of a clock on a day without schedules
or the countdown to some berry-inspired festival parade,
For this is where I come to soak in the wisdom of her years
like some porous sponge that dries too quickly
and I grow
through her thoughtless prattling
and her anecdotal rambling
and even in her silence
she'll never know how much
I grow.