It's early Sunday morning
a Mother's Day day
I saunter to my front yard
flanked by two towering parasol oaks
trees that whisper secrets from the
ancient gods perched infinitely beyond
the suns and the moons and the stars
a field of winter's yesterdays swallows her face
she's the seeing earth planked beneath
the soles of my wandering feet


the spring winds now take control of her
of her vested dirt the giver and taker 
in all its glorious forms
brown leaves rest upon her
withering crumpling rumbling
from the seasons past


I hear them rush into my hearts ear 
feet clopping like a white amazed stallion
brushed with strokes of unbridled beauty
a new thing in me a new thing for me


I scoop them up one by one
a brown leaf here a brown leaf there
I scoop faster more lots more
handfuls of wonderment cupped


I stand there perched in the awe
of a revelation of a Mother's Day day:


"you gave us a reason to keep on finding our pathway when the lights of life failed and the candles of doom illuminated our every frail step"
the brown leaves told me so


"you gave us a love that blew a cool breeze on every pain that tried to strip us and break our spirits"
the brown leaves told me so


"you blossomed laughter in us while choked by endless 
oceans of sad blue tears that slew us whole"
the brown leaves told me so


"you gave us a place to feel safe in when the world around us tried to jail us in our fears and lock us away in silence"
the brown leaves told me so


truly then for the first time in my time
that a Mother's Day day
reached beyond the physical womb
to a womb of warmth and gestation
of a different kind enveloped by a different sort
a sperm and egg of the heart
a birth of the soul
now I know I am a mother


all of this
this expose'
blossomed from the winter's death of things
the brown leaves told me so


simply because
I sauntered to my front yard
flanked by towering parasol oak trees
the seeing earth and the withering crumpling
rumbling brown leaves that spoke
on a Sunday morning
a Mother's Day day


copyright, May 13, 2004
marion coleman brown