Remembering Mama

From time to time I like to share my poetry from my book (now available on Kindle but mostly out of print) The Flame Keeper: And other Poems, PublishAmerica, 2007. These are excerpts from MAMA, pp. 45-48.

Mama

“Beautiful and slim

Shapely and smart,

You are the Mama

of my heart….

I feel your pride in me;

you praise my every

effort and see me as

you hope I will be.

Your love and faith in me

gave me confidence to be

my best self….

you shepherded my

homework and my mind,

making sure I read and

understood well beyond

my Dick and Jane reader.

Classics, poetry, opera

and all things a Brooklyn

child from a poor

family would never know.

You took me

(everywhere)

And we rode the train into

the city

to see the tree at

Rockefeller Center and

the lions in the Central Park Zoo.

You shared your love

of the library with me.

You opened the world

beyond our street

to me and my friends.

You were not scared

of the world beyond Brooklyn….

I wish I had bought you a house

all paid for, and took you on trips

to Florida and France,

adorning you with….all

the beautiful things

you deserved.

But, you loved me anyway,

always finding the good about me

and everyone you knew….

you slipped away….before

I could ,in turn, be there for you

beyond my own needs and desires.

But you knew it anyway….

(how much I loved you)…..

And that will be throughout all

eternity, where you wait

with His Mother, for the final

arrival of your child in glory.”

Rev. Dr. Judith A.B. Lee,

August 26,2004