White Swan

(Anonymous Photo)

MOTHER
—Lola Ridge (1873-1941)

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.

____________________

—Medusa

For more about Lola Ridge, see www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/lola-ridge
For more about Mother’s Day poetry, go to www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems-mothers-day

Celebrate poetry today by checking out
Medusa's Kitchen's Facebook page for
a new photo album by Katy Brown:
The Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony Farm.