Mother (Madre)

To all mums on their special weekend, my Dad’s earlier version of his poem Faint but firm shadow (Leve y firme sombra).  Curiously, Mother’s Day in my home town of Cúcuta, just like in Sweden, is on the last Sunday of May.  So mine will have to wait a few more weeks.  From my Dad’s book Poetry (Poesía). 

Mother (Madre)

I remember how our house

had a backyard bursting with sun

and wind.

How simple our lives were.

The warmth of our folks

concentrated

around the rustic table.

It came after a

gust of violent winds

and these words are only

food for evocation,

synthesis of a faded youth,

memories.

Of that destruction

the only survivor

is the weak and heavy

figure of mum.

She talks like

a pious and firm shadow

at our feet.

Mother loved beautiful things

and in everyone of her children she wanted to see

a horizon of unsuspected prodigies.

Her hands sewed wool

and dreams

and always before the first light of dawn

she would be running around the corridors

infecting with plenitude

the budding day.

Beyond twilight,

beyond the night,

from her hands sprouted in lyrical mass

paper flowers and songs.

I never saw her give up

to the monotony

of her daily labour.

Work was for her

a form of prayer.

We all surround her

with the warmest

of affections.

It hurts us

that as time goes by

it steals her from us.

 What keeps us hanging in there

is her way of distracting loneliness,

of enduring old pains,

of extracting, miraculously,

joy and serenity

from her always new heart.

1960.