For A Mother

For A Mother

Mother
Your voice learning to soothe
Your new child
Was the first home sound
We heard before we could see.

Your young eyes
Gazing on us
Was the first mirror
Where we glimpsed
What to be seen
Could mean.

Mother,
Your nearness filled the air,
An umbilical garden for all the seeds
Of longing that stirred in our infant hearts.

You nurtured and fostered this space
To root all our quietly gathering intensity
That could grow nowhere else.

Mother,
Formed from the depths beneath your heart,
You know us from the inside out
No deeds or seas or others
Could ever erase that

John O'Donohue, from Benedictus, A Book Of Blessings