Mother & Daughter

What can I say, but that it's not easy?
I cannot lift the stones out of your way,
And I can't cry your bitter tears for you.
I would if I could, what can I say?

But we're not one, we're worlds apart.
You and I,
Child of my body, bone of my bone,
Apple of my eye.

Rosalie Sorrels
***
That I not be a restless ghost
Who haunts your footsteps as they pass
Beyond the point where you have left
Me standing in the newsprung grass,

You must be free to take a path
Whose end I feel no need to know,
No irking fever to be sure
You went where I would have you go....

So you can go without regret
Away from this familiar land,
Leaving your kiss upon my hair
And all the future in your hands.

Margaret Mead
***
twenty one years of my life you have been
the lost colour in my eye. my secret blindness,
all my seeings turned grey with your going.
mother, i have worn your name like a shied.
it has torn but protected me all these years,
now even your absence comes of age.
i put on a dress called woman for this day
but i am not grown away from you
whatever i say.

Lucille Clifton
***