Traveling

On this sunny, breezy day in Philadelphia, I find myself missing my mom, and family, and the flavor of home. I apologize for again posting a Wendell Berry poem. You can blame The Writer’s Almanac for feeding me with its daily dose of poetry.

 This poem is a bit strange to dedicate to my mom since I am a girl, and it is clearly from a son. But, I find in my own heart shadows of a prodigal son and with my mom I am always “safe found, within your love.” 

So, here’s a piece of poetry for my mom, who offers forgiveness for everything from my pre-teen angst, to my cross-cultural transitions, and even to the many absences from days and things I should be present for. 

Mom-thanks for loving me in a way that is “the vision of that Heaven of which we have heard.” May this Mother’s Day offer you a taste of the coming day when “all is untangled and all is undismayed” 

“To My Mother” by Wendell Berry

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.