Mother

Mother
Yong Wan Choi 04.16.08

The days of nursing at your breast
the child grew until he had utterly forgotten
yet you held him to the end as your little one

The sorrow and pain that clung to life as I grew
you gathered into your thin body
and bore them in my place

Because I lived leaning on your touch
never worn down, all through my ripening years

that tender, tender gaze
as if you were still beside me
my anxious heart

Only now does the poor child
find again that his life is a piece of his mother's body
and for the first time understand
why people rise and go on