Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection,
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.You are less an image in my mind
than a luster
I see you in gleams
pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .
evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
shimmering in broken water.
Getting Close
Victoria RedelBecause my mother loved pocketbooks
I come alive at the opening click or close of a metal clasp.And sometimes, unexpectedly, a faux crocodile handle makes me weep.
Breathy clearing of throat, a smooth arm, heels on pavement, she lingers, sound tattoos.
I go to the thrift store to feel for bobby pins caught in the pocket seam of a camel hair coat.
I hinge a satin handbag in the crease of my arm. I buy a little change purse with its curled and fitted snap.
My mother bought this for me. This was my mother’s.
I buy and then I buy and then, another day, I buy something else.
In Paris she had a dog, Bijou, and when they fled Paris in 1942 they left the dog behind.
When my mother died on February 9, 1983, she left me.
Now, thirty years later and I am exactly her age.
I tell my husband I will probably die by the end of today and all day he says, Are you getting close, Sweetheart? And late in the afternoon, he asks if he should buy enough filet of sole for two.
From a blue velvet clutch I take out a mirror and behold my lips in the small rectangle.
Put on something nice.
Let him splurge and take you out for dinner, my mother whispers
on the glass.
What I Learned From My Mother
by Julia KasdorfI 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.
Rosy Raw Brownies
Recipe Ayurvedically adapted from Julie Morris, who has a video demonstrating it here.
Makes
1 dozen
Ingredients
1 cup walnuts
1 cup medjool dates, pitted (about 8)
1/2 cup raw cacao
1 teaspoon rose water
pinch pink salt
dash cinnamon
dash cardamom
Optional: 1 T cacao nibs, rose petals (dried or fresh), cinnamon
*
Method
Using an electric blender, grind your walnuts to a powder. Add the dates one at a time, blending well before adding the next. Mix in the cacao, then the rose water, finally the spices.
The mixture should be moist. If you pick it up between two fingers and it easily falls apart, add another bit of rose water. Be careful of two things: you don’t want to over-water, and you don’t want to over-blend or the oils are released and it becomes more like fudge than brownie.
Spread the mixture into a small baking pan. Press down with the back of a spoon or a spatula. Press evenly and firmly so the brownie will set. Optionally, you can press cacao nibs gently into the top, dust with cinnamon, or sprinkle with rose petals. The nibs give it a burst of bitter crunch, and the rose petals make it as beautiful as your Mom.
Mother’s Day
David Young—for my children
I see her doing something simple, paying bills,
or leafing through a magazine or book,
and wish that I could say, and she could hear,that now I start to understand her love
for all of us, the fullness of it.It burns there in the past, beyond my reach,
a modest lamp.
To mothers everywhere, thank you for the gripping power and delicate tending of your unflinching devotion.
Your love makes the world go round.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Jai Ma!
Beautiful Laura ~ not only do these brownies look exquisite, but the care you took with these beautifully touching poems ~ lovely ~ Happy Mothers Day!
Amazing healthy recipes! Thanks.
This mother’s day recipe looks so good!
REMEMBERING MOM
She bolted through her lifetime with a sense of urgency, making each step one dramatic adventure after another. Her life was a magnified moment of excitement, laughter and uniqueness. Surely she is bursting into her next life with the same enthusiasm.
Her spirit of adventure was captivating and infectious. Setting off on a picnic or moving the family 3,000 miles carried an equal thrill and excitement that was childlike and infectious.
Laughter was undoubtedly the most important aspect of her life and her character. She had that enviable ability to inject humor into every situation and to counteract a hidden fear or sudden sadness. She could laugh at herself, she could laugh with others, she could elicit laughter in a cancer clinic filled with pain.
She had a special sensitivity that made her reach out to the lonely or the rejected. Her dinner table always had room for one more, even Viola or The Little Man Who Wasn’t There – our imaginary playmates.
She was the first to acknowledge that she marched to a different drummer. This made her unique, a bit eccentric, always an individual. She was unpredictable and never really all grown up. This is what set her apart and made people love her. It is what offered her children and grandchildren a different perspective of life. It is what allowed her to be herself.
Mom would not want us to be sad in her memory, rather to smile through our tears and to celebrate the beautiful, fun times she shared with us. She would want to be remembered with laughter because she was, after all, comic relief in our world too often played with tragedy.
Thank you, Linda. This is so touching and inspiring. I feel as if I know your mother now, and know you better for it. Happy Mothers Day!
Yum!!!! I’ve been dreaming of these blissful bites ever since you shared them in class. Thank you for posting the recipe.
Thanks, Melissa – and thanks for all the delicious recipes you post!
Falling in love all over again…and the peddles of devotion wake the love for our Mothers!
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