Someday, you may not want me.
You may feel embarrassed,
or angry, or simply independent.
I will try to understand.
I will try, then, to remember days like this, evenings like this,
where you cry, in your small but so willful voice:
“Mama, I want you! Mama, pick me up!”
Where anything but my complete, devoted attention,
is nothing.
Where you must be touching me,
(“Your arm as my pillow!”)
to fall asleep.
Stay small, I think to pray.
Stay my little bird of innocence and imagination,
of story and song and sweetness.
But I don’t ask that,
because I know you must grow.
I know someday you will fly beyond me
in ways I cannot begin to comprehend.
And my mother’s heart will rejoice and weep at the same time.
I did my very best, I think to tell you,
with all the love and wisdom I have,
human and flawed as it is.
May it be a cloak,
a trellis,
a den to return to.
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