Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers ! No one knows what a mother goes through until you actually become one. Here's a little book in my collection called Mothers Please ! One Hundred poems for every mother. It celebrates motherhood in all its forms, from traditional ballads to works by poets great and little-known.

The Singing Kettle and the Purring Cat by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The singing kettle and the purring cat,

The gentle breathing of the cradled babe

The silence of the mother's love-bright eye

The tender smile answering its smile of sleep

To My Mother by George Barker

Most near, most dear, most loved and most fat,

Under the window where I often find her

Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter,

Gin and chicken helpless in her Iris hand,

Irresistible as Rabelais, but most tender for the lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her

She is like a procession no one can follow after

Be it like a little dog following a brass band

Mary, Mary by Roald Dahl

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow ?

I live with my brat in a high-rise flat,

So how in the world would I know.