Hey, you!
Yes, YOU! With the lank blond hair, And the soft, kissable,
Irresistible sweet mouth.
You, with the ice-blue Paul Newman eyes. You, my big scrawny, scraggy dope. You, my baby –
Yes, you are that,
A lanky,overgrown boy child,
Lighthearted, spoiled, and lovely,
And yet somehow sad.
Oh, yes! I know the sadness
That lurks beneath your laughter,
The fickle ways that hide your heartache, My gay, elusive charmer.
It was your boyish charm that won me, Your fey hopes of love that keep me. I would not see your lorn hopes die, Or see your smile grow mocking, Or hear your laugh grown harsh and hard, Or see your soft mouth set with bitterness As you grow older.
Was it a mother’s love that made you, Or the lack of it?
A mother love, perhaps, that kept you Too close to a mother’s heart?
(That is the place I long to keep you. I too would carry you beneath my heart, Within the warmth and shelter of my womb. I would hold you, and enfold you,
And shield you from the hurts and harms That make a boy a man.)
Or was it her rejection
That made you as you are,
Scornful, taciturn, mistrusting,
Yet painfully in need of trust?
Or was it father love that failed you? Is his scorn why beneath the mask
Of mirth and independent pride there hides A lost, bewildered, frightened little boy Who longs to cling yet dares not;
Whom too much hurt has thwarted, So that now he clings
Only when desolately lonely,
Only till he can once again endure
To be alone, and then shrugs off, resentful, The yoke of love which tries to bind him?
Love, I would enfold you.
I would hold you
In the warm womb of my love.
My love is all around you.
If you listen you will feel it
In the distant quickening tremor of my heartbeat As you nuzzle your warm face in my soft shoulder. My love flows all around you.
Reach out your hand and touch it
As you take my hand in your hand
And feel my love flow through you.
My love flows all around you.
Touch it, take it, drink it.
Breathe it into your mind and keep it,
Food for your soul to grow on.
My love is all around and through you,
Vibrating with your heartbeat.
Let it nourish and protect you.
Let it keep you till you grow
Strong and sure and proud and ready
To love and trust and face the world
Unafraid, no longer needing
Mother love to keep you.
Then I must expel you from my womb. The pain will be my own,
The pain I bear through love to give you birth. My empty womb will ache,
But if you stay,
I shall watch you grow into proud manhood, And weep, but just a little,
For the boy, lost to a man,
And then shall see the man, and love him.
Then deep within my womb
I shall feel an aching longing
To take and keep and hold and keep you In the warmth and shelter of my womb, While my love laps round you,
And your love flows like a fountain To mingle with my own.
And from our love will grow
A child – our child – a child of love, Child of your loveliness,
And of my love.
And I shall watch him grow and see in him
The child become a man who is his father,
And shall love him.
And you will help him grow and take his hand, And teach him trust and love the way a father can, So that I, his mother,
Need not hold him and enfold him,
Need not shield him from the hurts and harms That make a boy a man,
Or unprepared for, make him scornful and mistrusting.
I need teach him only
The lesson that I shall have learned Each day, as you, my love, grew older. I shall teach my child
To love the man, his father.