my mother in a coffee shop

You sit across from me and I look into your weathered eyes

I don’t know where you are but I have probably been there before

You don’t know where I am but you have probably been here before

Our spirits have danced so many dances, on every octave of existence

We have lived and survived and have found ourselves here,

Together

My heart is heavy with understanding — every year I turn older

I know myself better

And I know you better

And I see in those weathered eyes, that they are just eyes

A matriarch’s eyes; endless and nurturing and they hold the whole universe,

but they are still just eyes

Humbled, and full of love, I am beginning to understand

What it must be like

To raise a child

And want nothing more than their happiness,

but feeling powerless to provide it

And I am saddened

Because I feel that you don’t see what I see

That maybe the years of wisdom of you and your mother and her mother and her mother,

are embedded in my soul and my heart

And I see with the freshest eyes

That your healing has led to my healing

And if I have a daughter one day

I want her to look into my weathered eyes and I wont be nervous when I ask her,

“how are you doing”

Because I will know the truth of the beauty of the world

I will know it for her

When she can’t know it for herself