Atop the piano, a pastel by Prophet.
I woke up this morning with a Mother's Day nightmare fresh in my head. The nightmare was simple: it was Mother's Day and nothing the kids could do was fancy, expensive, or complicated enough to gain my approval. For a female who says (and thinks she believes) Mother's Day is not important to her, this was a nightmare from hell, replete with excessive consumerism and passive-aggressive poses.
Apart from being a commercial holiday for which our local Bojangles has a sign reading "Your Mother Would Love Our Heart-Shaped Biscuits", I think Mother's Day is a celebration of the way our world expands by mothering.
In my head, in that perfect land of parenting and partnering, Mother's Day would be any day of the year when you bust into a dance party on the beach with a beloved fellow mother and her saplings.
It would be the instant when I witness all three kids together on the piano bench and Prophet turning pages for the Eldest as he works on a difficult piece. It would three pairs of toes in varying degrees of motion. It would be the beautiful mysterious ways they've devised to cooperate without any suggestions or nagging from the voice that sounds like me.
It would be a poem about little feet padding down the hall at night, each step a succor-seeking syllable. It would be life, and the special part wouldn't cost a card or a penny. Only the kiss just after your eyes careen around the same curve and settle into seeing one another as treasure.
