A request and a poem

[empressofstars.livejournal.com]

Hey everyone,

My mother died a couple of days ago from cancer, and I am looking for poems to read. I have combed through the old request tags and have come up with a selection, but nothing QUITE right. So I am looking for poems about mothers, primarily, and also poems about death that involve being peaceful (maybe Mary Oliver? Or something in a similar spirit?)

And in return, I offer a poem along those themes:

For My Mother
(May Sarton)

Once more
I summon you
Out of the past
With poignant love,
You who nourished the poet
And the lover.
I see your gray eyes
Looking out to sea
In those Rockport summers,
Keeping a distance
Within the closeness
Which was never intrusive
Opening out
Into the world.

And what I remember
Is how we laughed
Till we cried
Swept into merriment
Especially when times were hard.
And what I remember
Is how you never stopped creating
And how people sent me
Dresses you had designed
With rich embroidery
In brilliant colors
Because they could not bear
To give them away
Or cast them aside.

I summon you now
Not to think of
The ceaseless battle
With pain and ill-health,
The frailty and the anguish.
No, today I remember
The creator,
The lion-hearted.

Mark Strand, 'The New Year '

[duathir.livejournal.com]

The New Year

It is winter and the new year.
Nobody knows you.
Away from the stars, from the rain of light,
you lie under the weather of stones.
There is no thread to lead you back.
Your friends doze in the dark
of pleasure and cannot remember.
Nobody knows you. You are the neighbor of nothing.
You do not see the rain falling and the man walking away,
the soiled wind blowing its ashes across the city.
You do not see the sun dragging the moon like an echo.
You do not see the bruised heart go up in flames,
the skulls of the innocent turn into smoke.
You do not see the scars of plenty, the eyes without light.
It is over. It is winter and the new year.
The meek are hauling their skins into heaven.
The hopeless are suffereing the cold with those who have nothing to hide.
It is over and nobody knows you.
There is starlight drifting on the black water.
There are stones in the sea no one has seen.
There is a shore and people are waiting.
And nothing comes back.
Because it is over.
Because there is silence instead of a name.
Because it is winter and the new year.

by Mark Strand

A Woman's Answer To A Man's Question, by Mary T. Lathrap

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

A Woman's Answer To A Man's Question
[Written in reply to a man's poetic unfolding of what he conceived to be a woman's duty.]

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the hand above—
A woman's heart, and a woman's life
And a woman's wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy,
Demanding what others have died to win,
With the reckless dash of a boy?

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Man-like you have questioned me;
Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul
Until I shall question thee.

( You require your mutton shall always be hot, )