Book of My Mother

XXIX

PRAISE BE TO you, mothers of all lands, praise be to you in your sister my mother, in the majesty of my dead mother. Mothers of the world, mothers, Our Ladies, hail, sweet angels, you who taught us to tie our shoelaces, you who taught us to blow our noses, yes, you who showed us how to go ppff ppff in the hanky, as you used to say, you, mothers of all lands, you who patiently stuffed down us spoonful by spoonful the semolina we babies made such a to-do about eating, you who coaxed us into swallowing stewed prunes by explaining that they were little old men who wanted to go back home, and then the little pea-brain, delighted and suddenly a poet, would open the door of the house, you who taught us to gargle and went rrrr rrrr to encourage us and show us how, you who were forever arranging our curly locks and our ties to make us look nice before visitors came or before we went to school, you who never stopped grooming and dolling up your nasty foolish little ponies of sons, heart-stirringly caring for your most treasured possessions, you who cleaned up all our messes and our grubby, gritty, grazed knees and our dirty little snotty-brat noses, you who were never sickened by us, you who were so weak and indulgent with us and later so easily got round and taken in by your adolescent sons to whom you gave all your savings, hail, majesty of our mothers. Hail, mothers full of grace, holy sentinels, courage and kindness, warmth and loving gaze, you whose eyes see all, you who know at once if the spiteful have hurt us, you, the only humans in whom we can trust and who never, never will betray us, hail, mothers who think of us constantly, even in your sleep, mothers who always forgive and stroke our brows with your toil-worn hands, mothers who never tire of serving us and covering us and tucking us up in bed even if we are forty, mothers who do not love us less if we are ugly, failures, degraded, weak, or cowardly, mothers who sometimes make me believe in God.