Mother Mountain

I Am Mother

I am 
the Mother
of these mountains

when the birds
sing
loudly for my soul

knows which way
is up
keep going

to the stream
sparkles in union
with morning light

up we go
again
to the etched peak

where the sky
asks us to sit,
staringly

at all we’ve become
in the journey
to these mountains

I mother. 

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I wrote this poem early last spring, right when I had moved back home to Appalachia—to the mountains, the mountains I grew up in.

I’m putting together my fourth poetry book right now, Relational Relics: The Entire Point, and it’s about the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows, of relationships. All the relationships of our lives. Relationships with lovers, friends, sisters and brothers, mothers, fathers, and the lands. I’m humbled, in awe, and just happy as I look over the poems I wrote in the past year to see all I endured, all I’ve overcome, and all the life I chose to live. For it is through relationship that we come to know ourselves most deeply.

Several weeks ago, I learned some news about a new relationship in my life—a relationship with a child.

I never wanted to be a mother. I never wanted it in the way some mothers want it.

But I have felt a tug for some years now, as if there was a being, a soul, a universal Source energy, that wanted me to mother—as mother.

I’m only 35, but I’ve lived a lot of life so far. And I’ve learned one thing that is universal and matters probably more than anything. It’s this: nothing in life can be forced, only allowed.

Only allowed.

And so, here I am, mother, allowing.

And I realize something. I realize that as this new light of life literally grows in my womb, I have already been a mother. Perhaps, I have always been a mother.

A mother to the women in my life, to the sisters. A mother to the animals. A mother to the mountains.

And with this knowing, I know too that I shall be okay. My daughter, Violet, will have me as mother.

Meanwhile, I will sit, staringly, at all I’ve become in the journey to these mountains I mother.