A mother speaks to her poet son

Your infantile face opened up
with the blossoming of peach trees…
Whom you resembled. But I wanted you
more handsome still.
Within my eyes I hid you
so your evolution from blossom
to fruit
might be ever so brief.

Your growth left no footprints on my apron.
Even as a toddler you yearned to catch the rainbow
with your hand;
but each time the rainbow drifted away
with the hoary locks of the sky.

You came back crying.

Now you neither cry nor run
after it.
Because you have your own rainbow – of words.
Is this not a rare thing of beauty?

Once I measured your growth by the palms of my hands.
While now others measure it
by the lines of poetry you write.

You are a poet
and the poets reach extends beyond the boundaries of space.

Gjekë Marinaj
Poet

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