From My Mother By Ellyssa Pearce

From my mother I learned to play the dishes like Tetris,

To always roll the socks inside out,

And to make sure you always walk out of the kitchen

 with clean hands.

From my mother I learned to get things done all at once

So you can do more stuff that much faster,

I learned nothing is okay to say.

From my mother I learned simple is beautiful

 And hand-me-downs are special,

That laughter is needed

when you’re in a crowd of people you don’t know.

From my mother I learned cheap is hard to beat

And that water is the cure for most things,

I learned that sharing isn’t really caring

But giving is living.

From my mother I learned how to care for others,

How to nurture and make fun of my kids

So they will be my best friend 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.