By My Friend, Julie Paquette

Let’s speak

of the joy of being a mother,
of how we were all about ourselves,
but now we love to feed others,
having become Love.

Let’s speak
of the pain of being a mother,
when our babies come home crying
at whatever age,
torn by the callous disregard
of other people.

Let’s speak openly
of the refining of the human heart
when it’s cut, burned, and twisted,
Its pieces planted skyward as a path of stars,
guiding the heartbroken
through the dark.

Let’s be perfectly clear
that the giving of life
through the womb
knits an umbilical cord
joining us to every other living being.

Pain is the lining of the silk purse of love--
Consider that when you deposit your coin.
And oh, how it burns
When the silk purse turns inside out,
our hearts on the outside--
Like in those old Jesus pictures
A heart bleeding and stabbed with arrows
Yet radiantly alive