POETRY FRIDAY: A Sonnet for My Mother

This is a special Poetry Friday post for my mother who was the eldest of four children of Polish immigrants who came to the United States in the early 20th Century. My mother, whose name is Mary…or Manya as her parents and siblings called her, has always been the kind of person to take care of others. She cared for her younger siblings when they were growing up. She pampered my father. She cared for her parents and mother-in-law in their elder years. She often babysat for my sister’s two daughters when they were young. And she helped to raise my daughter by taking over the responsibility of being her caregiver on school days when I returned to teaching after my much-too-brief maternity leave.

It’s hard to express to my mother how much she means to me. It's hard to thank her for the many kindnesses she has done for my family and me and for all the sacrifices she has made over the years. I do find that poetry can often express feelings and thoughts that can touch one’s inner soul and heart in ways that prose cannot.


Here is a sonnet for my mother for Mother’s Day 2007:

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
by Christina Rossetti

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.

My Mother with One of Her Great Grandsons

(Christmas 2002)