A Day Which Breaks Your Heart...

{day 23}

some have asked me
what is it like to be a mother?
How does one possibly describe this... 

What is it like
to have a head on your neck?
What I mean is,
it's as obvious and understated and as essential
as the head that comes up from my neck.  

or, to put it another way -

i remember
holding my baby boy
mesmerized by the bend of time
here he was,
brand new in my arms and yet -
it always was
always will be

and here,
here is the point of no return

so,
to love
to feel a bind so essential - 
then to have lost
they say it is better than not
and i agree

there are lost loves
which cannot be replaced
like a mother and her son
when it happens, 
it seems a violent tearing of that sacred cord
which binds humanity

this isn't meant to be depressing
remember, i held a bundled newborn
and could comprehend unthwartable eternity
in love,
in relationship

but today
I will mourn with that sweet boy
not in hopelessness
but in the ache of having to say goodbye
too soon.