When Anna Jarvis organized the first official Mother’s Day celebration in 1908,
she longed to see it become a national holiday. As she watched it become
less about peace, less about an end to weaponry and war,
and more about consumption, commercialization, capitalism,
Jarvis protested her own holiday, regretting what she had dreamt into being.
Audre Lorde taught, “We can learn to mother ourselves.”
Mothering, thus sayeth the Lorde, is a practice, a verb, a force –
of life
of love
of healing
of nourishment and nurture, of sustenance and encouragement
of protection, fierce and tender
of creative transformation.
And so, this Mother’s Day, we
who want for something different, we
who long for a world rewoven with love, we
who refuse to accept or acquiesce, we
who refuse to relent or turn away or give up, we
too, call upon mothering power, and cry:
Mama. Mum. Mami. Maminka. Mamacita. Mor.
Ummi. Okaasan. Maman. Ema. Mommy. Mamma. Mom.
With a prayer as ancient as time: please, please, please.
Please: Root in lineages of protest, protection, care, survival.
Dream and seed futures, fertile and flourishing.
Hold and heal, hope and hang on, even if by a thread.
Cook and mend, harbor and teach.
Sing lullabies and whisper wisdom, passed down.
Tend the trauma that is passed down, too, until, courageously, it isn’t.
Honor and shelter the sacred lives so cruelly offered up for death.
Which is to say: Mother.
Mother ourselves and each other.
Mother, in the ways that make life possible.
Blessed be, thanks be, please be:
The mothering that gets us through.
anna blaedel
Where are the Mother’s Day poems
about mothers in Gaza, miraculously yet alive,
spending yet another day collecting
the scattered limbs of their dead children, while
searching, too, for anything, any little thing, that could pass
as food, as comfort, as survival, as possibility
for their starving children, in yet another
year of genocidal brutality, after yet another
decade of displacement & containment, after yet another
generation of violent occupation, and forced
separation from their mothers, and motherland?
Where are the Mother’s Day poems
about Noor Abdalla giving birth, after ICE denies
Mahmoud Khalil’s request to be present, to hold
her beloved hand, and wipe her beloved brow, and welcome
their beloved child into a world so callously cruel?
Where are the Mother’s Day poems
about the mothers in Nashville, chanting “No tengas miedo”
“Do not be afraid” as their children,
their beloveds, their siblings, their own mothers,
are forced onto buses, and disappeared?
And, where are the Mother’s Day poems
remembering that mothers, too,
are dropping the bombs, and manufacturing them, too.
Mothers justifying the brutality, writing it into policy, enforcing it.
Mothers wearing MAGA hats and rolex watches, calling
gleefully for mass deportations, and
celebrating family separations.
Mothers, denying the tender vulnerability and precious
sacredness of others’ children, and mothers denying
their own children, too, when their kiddos
are trans, and miraculously yet alive?
anna blaedel
A mothering force of life,
ancient and alive,
calls us into being,
nurtures us with care,
strengthens and supports us.
For all those through whom this lifeforce mothers,
we give thanks.
For those who teach us to be courageous and kind,
who hold our grief and fight to make a way with and for us,
who love us when the world doesn’t,
who encourage us to share our deepest most authentic gifts for the sake of the collective whole…
We are grateful. We are blessed.
And too, we bear truths more complicated in these collective observances.
The grief, the erasure, the distance, the queer and trans antagonism, all the forces that leave those who mother under-resourced, criminalized, isolated, or afraid for their children – given or chosen.
We choose to linger in the both/ands.
Blessing and grief.
Honest and complex.
Tender and still learning, each of us,
what is to mother and be mothered,
and love well our teachers,
human, plant, and creature.
m jade kaiser
on this day
this day that holds so much
when we hold so much
and hold those who hold so much
who have held us through so much
may the pressure to feel
this way or that
crack open
allowing a softer, more complex holding
so many pain points—
so many points of possibility, too
thank you to those who give body and soul in the midwifing of more livable worlds
those who lose sleep and rise early and work late
those who teach us to read, and cook, and build, and plant, and tend
those who tell the stories of who we are, and were, and could be
those who wipe away tears, listen deep, offer wisdom, open to learning
those who fight for the kids who need sanctuary, shelter, and a soft place to land
those who sing us to dream with lullabies that are hymns of revolution
who remind us how beautiful the small moments can be
how miraculous this life is, so shot through with horrors, and so beautiful still
each lunch packed and snack made
each garden planted and bail fund raised
each turn toward collective, toward liberative, toward sacred, messy, uncertain aliveness
every act of care, for infants and elders and everyone in between
welcoming home
midwifing movement
birthing a world
in which we can heal the traumas that cross generations
we can learn to mother ourselves
we can build a world where mothers are chosen and choose,
and mothering is honored, the holy labors of love that set us free
anna blaedel