Mother

I can hear the tears in your voice

when you speak and sigh.

You cry with your voice.

You, Mother, are so tuned
to me and I to you that even now,

as you weep, I can feel your pain.

I know your tears as you know me. So deeply, I lay in your womb, as you cried yourself to sleep. I knew these tears even when I could not see you. I did not need to see so that I might feel you cry.

Your tears tore through my brightest smiles as I nestled in your nest.

Smiles of naivety

and its happiness:

Happiness so unknown, undoubting, and so sure.

So sure was this happiness, that your voice

proved to be like a blade sharpened to cut threw me.

You cut threw my happiness.

I felt each cry, Mother.

I felt you smile into my heart

with a heart of content peace.

I smiled inside you Mother, when you smiled out.

I smiled, Mana.

But even now, as I smile my own smile,

I can feel your cry.

Even when, now the cord that once bound us is broken.

I cry with you, Ma, I sigh along with you and I weep.