Gift of Motherhood and Songs

I think I was going to wait so long for paradise,
to hold my mother like me at childhood would,
to my doll. But you came as an angel, not fallen.
It was as if mother resurrected into your body,
to teach me how to stay afloat on this sea,
if the ship capsizes by the hands of angry ice,
jealous waves and dark forces beyond us.
God gave me you; he knew there are many
who would push me into the jaws of grief.
The sea seeks to grip a fish to its heart:
how do I tell God I do not want to be robed
of warmth? My childhood lost his mother
and its scars are there still, on my body,
for certain wounds do not disappear quickly;
they fall in love with our flesh, again and again,
and make love to it in the dark, like the grief
hunting you. But there’s another gift: songs
to be sung aloud in seasons of sorrow.