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