It was an evening of tears.
Not of pain or sadness
but those that arise unbidden and unexpected
after witnessing a hardened woman
who finds a sliver of grace
to forgive herself and another.

Tears of gratitude
from the sudden awareness
of undeserved goodness
given freely.

This flow welled up
from something so deep within me
it belies masculinity, logic,
or the thick and high walls
cast up from hurt.

Tears that pierce scar tissue
wrapped around the soul
from pain or the fear of it
from abuse and the remembrance of it.
These are powerful tears
more mighty than the brutality
and shameless arrogance
I witness on the evening news.

Oh how full I felt
from this unabashed weeping
as if I had been visited by angels,
innocence,
or something that can only be called
divine.

As the smoke curls and coils,
Wrapping itself around those tender black lashes;
I forgot to breathe and got the wind knocked out.
It is as though, a single second let alone these few years... bereft from your lips; is like gasping in space.
You know more of the hydraulics than I do.
But I wanted you to beg; for an exploration.
"please"
We kiss and all in the world stands still.
My mind's a broken record -as cliched as it sounds- replaying the first time you slept so soundly in my arms.

I never knew peace until you.

Our English Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, on Mother's Day

The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

NOTE: This is my translation/interpretation of a Sappho epigram.

You are welcome to share this poem for noncommercial use and dedicate it to your favorite mother, but please credit the author if you share it on social media or elsewhere on the Internet …

Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother’s smile, no softer touch
than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than “much.”

So more than “much,” much more than “all.”
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother’s there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back
than father’s back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, then flew.
But, oh, a mother’s tender smile
will leap and follow after you!

I have dedicated this poem to my mother, Christine Ena Burch, and my wife, Elizabeth Harris Burch. Published by TALESetc, Famous Poets and Poems, Poems for Big Kids (anthology), Victorian Violet Press, Better Than Starbucks, Promosaik (Germany), Pour Femme (Italy), Korean Palmers, JIT Jaipur (India), Inspirational Stories and Care2Care; also Penguin Books Valentine’s Day Contest Winner and included in the Children of Gaza song cycle by composer Eduard de Boer. Keywords/Tags: Mother, Mothers, Day, love, compassion, tenderness, encouragement, selflessness, sacrifice, comfort, hugs, kisses, smile, smiles

Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth and Laura, and all good mothers

Bring your peculiar strength
to the strange nightmarish fray:
wrap up your cherished ones
in the golden light of day.

                                  Amen

Originally published by The Lyric

Keywords/Tags: Motherhood, good mothers, maternal, nurturing, caring, strength, courage, love, compassion, tenderness, human angels, golden light

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you came to me in my black torment
and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun
upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment
they melt, I am undone.

Because I am undone, you have remade me
as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow
the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me
and bower me, somehow.

Keywords/Tags: Love, compassion, tenderness, kisses, melt, melting, sun, rain, bower, shelter, comfort, refuge, home, union

Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable to sing.

What songs long forgotten occur to you now—
a babe at each breast? What terrible vow
ripped from your throat like the thunder that day
can never hold severing lightnings at bay?

Time taught you tenderness—time, oh, and love.
But love in the end is seldom enough ...
and time?—insufficient to life’s brief task.
I can only admire, unable to ask—

what is the source, whence comes the desire
of a woman to love as no God may require?

Keywords/Tags: Gaza, mothers, touch, tenderness, dove, shelter, wing, coos, sings, babies, fledglings, love, god