Mother's Day 2007---the milk of human kindness |
Tres Leches I. I bake a tres leches for the Mother's Day feast, cold, grainy, milky,moist, a last, sweet promise to my gathering family that I can still nurse them with the wisdom of God, though my breasts are dry, my belly slack. II. Hours before, I stood sweltering in the Florida humidity, silently witnessing for peace, meditating on what change I can effect in the world, watching a teen-age mother wipe dandelion milk from her toddler's sticky fingers. III. Now, at twilight, the grandchildren and I, dance ring-around-the-rosie splashing in the pool as we all fall down under the Milky Way. My daughter sits cross-legged beneathe the budding red-orange poinciana suckling her youngest. Above, I hear the humming of all my great, silent grandmothers streaming through the heavens. Author's Note: A tres leches is a Mexican dessert made with three milks. I borrowed shamelessly from Katya the Poet ...after her poem of the same title..."Invalid Item" ....although the themes are quite different. http://www.standingwoman.org |