Poets’ Corner: Erika Moss Gordon For Mother’s Day

07 May Poets’ Corner: Erika Moss Gordon For Mother’s Day

In most cases, the lucky ones, mothers are the Linus blankets of our early lives. We hang on as long as we can. Early on, we can’t go to sleep without them nearby. When we think of our most cherished childhood memories, moms typically play central roles in the narrative, providing  warmth, understanding, and life lessons we metabolized then – or now in maturity. Moms may not walk around with halos surrounding their heads. But that is only because when the halos get tarnished, that would be one more thing to clean.

Erika Gordon is a mom. She also writes poetry, works for the Telluride Film Festival in community outreach, and teaches yoga. Her first collection of poetry, “Of Eyes and Iris,” was published by Liquid Light Press in 2013.

Below is her tribute to Mother’s Day, which brings to mind the Malvina Reynold’s classic “Turn Around.”

Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two, 
Turn around and you’re four,
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my door.
Turn around, turn around, 
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my door. 

Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Little dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?²
Turn around and you’re tiny,
Turn around and you’re grown, 
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your own.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your own.

Not meaning to rush things Erika.…

Winter Flowers

Wooden pencils scratch
over Tuesday night
word problems

to Django Rienhardt¹s
Gypsy guitar,
while outside,

the mountains
turn pollen orange
like this mason jar

dripping with stargazer lilies,
long past open. This is
one of the illuminated

moments, when you notice
that everything matters,
that perhaps

you have landed
in the quiet center
of your own wild

and beautiful garden,
and the children,
half sprouted,

are rooted
and blooming
like flowers.