The lovely poem, “Remember,” by Joy Harjo is an homage to the natural world and the people and things things that remind you you’re alive, including your mother. Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, is of Native American descent, and this poem exudes a deep connection to nature and the connectedness of the world. It’s a wonderful Valentine’s Day poem for a mommy who loves to be outside.
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
It can be easy to forget how much we know is owed to our mothers (though if you’re a mother yourself it may start to come back to you as you teach your child things both big and small). The knowledge of everything from how to tie shoes, cook a perfect chili, or make people feel welcome can often be traced back to a mother figure. “What I Learned From My Mother” by Julia Kasdorf perfectly captures this sentiment by walking a reader through how she’s learned to help others in times of grief.
I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skin
sand flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.
Poetry can be playful and fun as this poem, “Lunchbox Love Note” by Kenn Nesbitt, shows. Anyone who’s ever received a note in their lunchbox from their well-intentioned mother can relate to this funny Valentine’s Day poem for mom.
Inside my lunch
a perfect heart-shaped
The outside says,“Will you be mine?”
and, “Will you be
would want to tell me
who’s much too shy
to hand it to me
was sweetly penned
a secret friend
Who found my lunch
and slid the note in
Oh, I’d be thrilled
if it were Jo,the cute one in
Has she found out
I’m sweet on her?
my shoulders tense.
of this suspense.
My stomach lurching
Then wham! as if
inside it reads,
Show your mother you care about her with this gorgeous, deceptively simple poem from poet Kate Baer. The New York Times bestselling author writes about motherhood and womanhood in a voice that is clear and precise while drawing attention to modern struggles and joys of parenting, marriage, and just being alive. This poem sheds light on how the simplest things mothers do are often remembered as the most comforting.
I do not remember being born
or how I knew my mother’s face.
Only that we woke to the sound
of pots banging against the stove,
knowing she would be downstairs.
This stunning poem by Ada Limón so effortlessly captures all the small things mothers do because they love their children, without thanks or acknowledgment. Everyone can relate to the line: I saw a mom take her raincoat off// and give it to her young daughter when// a storm took over the afternoon, and if you’re a mom yourself, you may find yourself tearful with recognition reading this Valentine’s poem for mommy.
When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.
If you've ever wondered who is behind all those greeting card poems, look no further than poet Helen Steiner Rice. In fact, according to the Helen Steiner Rice Foundation website, her first books were compilations of poems she wrote and mailed her own friends and family.
Until I became a mom, I really didn't understand the depth of my mom's love for me, and how darn patient she has been with me over all these years. Good grief, have I been a brat on more than one occasion! "A Mother's Love" by Helen Steiner Rice captures the enigmatic quality of a mother's love, perfect for Valentine's Day. It goes like this:
A Mother's love is something
that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .
It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .
It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .
It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendoured miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God's tender guiding hand.
As moms, we all know in our hearts that we should appreciate the little moments with small children scurrying around, but sometimes it takes a poet like Robert Louis Stevenson to put that feeling into words. Stevenson was a Scottish author and prolific world traveler, as explained by the website dedicated to his memory. He crammed many words and adventures into his 44 years, and his life is one worth learning more about — perhaps alongside your mom!
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
What woman (or man, for that matter) doesn't love a poem by the legendary Maya Angelou? If you imagine her melodic voice as you read the first two stanzas of her poem "Mother, a Cradle to Hold Me", it's even more moving. If your mom is a Maya Angelou fan as well, you could pick up a copy of Mom & Me & Mom, the story of Angelou's relationship with her mother, which was as complex as many of our own relationships with our mothers are.
I was created in you.
It is also true
That you were created for me.
I owned your voice.
It was shaped and tuned to soothe me.
Your arms were molded
Into a cradle to hold me, to rock me.
The scent of your body was the air
Perfumed for me to breathe.
During those early, dearest days
I did not dream that you had
A large life which included me,
For I had a life
Which was only you.
Does your mother have a flair for the dramatic? How about this poem, "Mother O' Mine", by Rudyard Kipling. The author, who penned The Jungle Book, which we all know and love from the Disney animated version, describes the love he knows his mother has for him, in the most declarative language. Can't you picture him standing on top of a hill, shouting to the rooftops about his mother o'mine?
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
Rupi Kaur isn't only a New York Times best-selling poet, she also illustrates her own books with simple line drawings. If you are on the look-out for a gift to help your kids make their mom, this is a sweet option. Set them up with a few black markers and white paper, and ask them to draw their mom (or a heart, if you have even smaller kids), in the style that Kaur uses. Slip in a printed copy of her poem "Lessons From Mumma" from her second collection of poems, The Sun and Her Flowers.
When it came to listening
My mother taught me silence
If you are drowning their voice with your
Show will you hear them she asked
Shen it came to speaking
She said do it with commitment
Every word you say
Is your own responsibility
When it came to being
She said be tender and tough at once
You need to be vulnerable to live fully
But rough enough to survive it all
When it came to choosing
She asked me to be thankful
For the choices I had that
She never had the privilege of making
What immediately strikes you when you read "Another Poem for others" by Erin Belieu is the imagery in the Valentine’s day poem for mommy (that she’ll love every day of the year). She perfectly describes the reassuring quality of a mom when she writes of her mother's hands:
Mother, I’m trying
a poem to you—which is how most
poems to mothers must
begin—or, What I’ve wanted
to say, Mother...but we
as children of mothers,
even when mothers ourselves,
cannot bear our poems
to them. Poems to
mothers make us feel
little again. How to describe
that world that mothers spin
and consume and trap
and love us in, that spreads
for years and men and miles?
Those particular hands that could
smooth anything: butter on bread,
cool sheets or weather. It’s
the wonder of them, good or bad,
those mother-hands that pet
Every mother wants to be remembered as Irish poet Lola Ridge describes, "less an image in my mind than a luster." Born in Dublin in the late 1800s, Ridge grew up in mining towns in New Zealand and Australia before immigrating to the United States and becoming an activist on the topics of race, class and gender issues.
Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection,
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.
You are less an image in my mind
I see you in gleams
pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .
evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
shimmering in broken water.
Most of us know Christina Rossetti's work because she penned the Christmas carol “In The Bleak Midwinter,” but you'll probably enjoy this sonnet dedicated to her mother. Increasingly known as one of the major Victorian poets, Rossetti's words about her first love will surely touch your mother's heart.
Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.
Whether your mom or mother-in-law is a poetry fan or you’re looking to express your love for your mom on Valentine’s Day but words aren’t coming easy, a poem that relays your feelings is always a thoughtful gift. You could even consider buying a poetry book with a bookmark on the poem you want her to read.
This article was originally published on Feb. 2, 2018