I'm recycling this week. I wrote this one a couple years ago.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If she tilts
her head
just so
in the golden shafts
of sun,
I can see
a lone hair
growing
on her chin.
I consider telling
her about it
but we’re in the middle
of a card game
and she’s winning
so I don’t want
to spoil
this time
we have together.
Later that night
after she has climbed
the stairs
one step at a time
carrying the weight
of eighty-one
years of laughter
and sadness,
I, too get ready
for bed.
I brush my teeth,
wash my face
and apply
a night cream.
The light
catches a glint
on the curve
of my chin
and I stand there
looking in the mirror
at my mother.
A frightening realisation. I remember an almost exact same event when I saw my father.
ReplyDeleteI almost could see that images...very human and true!
ReplyDeletePoignant and powerful. There's no going back...except in mind and mirror. Nice work!
ReplyDeletebeautiful and powerful Linda! I will never forget the first time I saw my mom in my mirror!
ReplyDeleteEvery day we look in the mirror. It's fleeting when we actually see what's in it!
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteYou were highly recommended by oh, so I thought I would stop by as I do enjoy poetry. This is beautiful, and so true. In every sense of the word. Thank you.
do old people really go through all that?
ReplyDeletelovely! I look very much like my mother, so I consistently have a good idea of what I will look like in 30 years time.
ReplyDeleteYour poem begins with such neatly vivid description, I'm drawn right in to understanding your mother's aging. What a neat twist to bring it back to that reality in the mirror. It's not so easy to write about aging and your relationship with your mother. This is a fine poem!
ReplyDeleteThis is lovely and terrible at the same time. I don't want to be my mother.
ReplyDeleteYou paint the most vivid images. For most of my life I did not want to be my mother. But part of us is who we came from and these days, I no longer fight or regret seeing my mother in me. I think it's what you call self-acceptance.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this like I do each time I read your work, Linda.
This is absolutely true...the older I get, the more I see my mother when I look in the mirror. You wrote about it very poignantly...
ReplyDeleteThis is simply superb.I'm never looking in the mirror again.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look in the mirror I see my father.Yikes!!!
ReplyDeleteI have jowl fuzz just like my mom had. She died at 44 and grandma is gone, so the DNA of aging will be a surprise. I loved the emotion in between the lines. :)
ReplyDeletewow. i was right there through the whole piece. i got a really smattering that life is what it is from your words.
ReplyDeletePhew, and doesn't it happen all too quickly!
ReplyDeletePoignant poetry!!
you captured this moment so well! very well done. I enjoyed this post very much.
ReplyDelete:)
That's a very nicely rounded tale. And so true - we all have the images of our parents in us somewhere.
ReplyDeletePoignant. About us seeing a part of our parents within ourselves, we all want to, consciously or not.
ReplyDelete