Anna Hempstead Branch: Songs for my Mother
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Songs for my Mother

1875-1937


I. Her Hands

My mother's hands are cool and fair,
         They can do anything.
Delicate mercies hide them there
         Like flowers in the spring.

When I was small and could not sleep,
         She used to come to me,
And with my cheek upon her hand
         How sure my rest would be.

For everything she ever touched
         Of beautiful or fine,
Their memories living in her hands
         Would warm that sleep of mine.

Her hands remember how they played
         One time in meadow streams, --
And all the flickering song and shade
         Of water took my dreams.

Swift through her haunted fingers pass
         Memories of garden things; --
I dipped my face in flowers and grass
         And sounds of hidden wings.

One time she touched the cloud that kissed
         Brown pastures bleak and far; --
I leaned my cheek into a mist
         And thought I was a star.

All this was very long ago
         And I am grown; but yet
The hand that lured my slumber so
         I never can forget.

For still when drowsiness comes on
         It seems so soft and cool,
Shaped happily beneath my cheek,
         Hollow and beautiful.

II. Her Words

My mother has the prettiest tricks
         Of words and words and words.
Her talk comes out as smooth and sleek
         As breasts of singing birds.

She shapes her speech all silver fine
         Because she loves it so.
And her own eyes begin to shine
         To hear her stories grow.

And if she goes to make a call
         Or out to take a walk
We leave our work when she returns
         And run to hear her talk.

We had not dreamed these things were so
         Of sorrow and of mirth.
Her speech is as a thousand eyes
         Through which we see the earth.

God wove a web of loveliness,
         Of clouds and stars and birds,
But made not any thing at all
         So beautiful as words.

They shine around our simple earth
         With golden shadowings,
And every common thing they touch
         Is exquisite with wings.

There's nothing poor and nothing small
         But is made fair with them.
They are the hands of living faith
         That touch the garment's hem.

They are as fair as bloom or air,
         They shine like any star,
And I am rich who learned from her
         How beautiful they are.


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