Little girl that I was

I love you now, as I didn't then.

Could I have your real mother been?

A kiss and a hug you would have had

Now and then.

I would have noticed tears and stars

In your eyes.

And the mirth and the dearth of satisfaction

That played around your mouth,

Your silken hair in disarray

Blown by wanton winds

Neath sun warmed skies

That were love to you.

The little girl you were

I am today,

And I love you

More than myself.

No comfort to you now,

For the hurt and un-acknowledgement

So far ago.

But memory stirs the pool of years~

Stirs its deepest debts with sweet remorse

Last longing of evaporated tears.

How long past matters not

The pains of childhood are not forgot

They ripple through the souls evolution

Internally, eternally.

I have brought you with me

All these years.

We are soul mates grown to cognition

Of past and present joined.

I love you now when you knew not.

You love me now, when then was not.

Mystery of mind and heart

Another facet of the consternation

Some, perhaps we, call God.

You yearn through memory

And I respond.

It is I who dry your dusty tears.

You long through time for reassurance,

Though late, I quell your fears,

Pay your claim of insurance

Against abandonment.

Your reality echoes through my present

And gently we lean together

On the indirect reality

Of then and now subtracted from never.

You are my retrospect

And I am your mothermorphosis.

Together met at midpoint

On an arch of time

Mortared with sands of memory

Glue of specific years

And salt of mutual tears.

Must snide contemporary judgment

Trip, "narcissism!"?

Or, "nemesis" chide?

No matter.

Remember, Judas lied.

Poetic injustice, let it be,

Tempered by the truth of you plus me.

The fact one still infers:

My foster mother am I

And the child I was is hers.

1977