THE PRICE OF MOTHERHOOD
Posted: Sun May 08, 2016 11:52 am
THE PRICE OF MOTHERHOOD
(For all the mums who wait...)
Winter’s bitter gloom came softly creeping across the land,
engaging and defeating the sun’s last feeble strand,
the cold grey mist upon the mountain came slowly seeping down
encompassing and enshrouding the little country town.
Once again the mother’s face peered from the kitchen door,
but once again there was no trace of the child she waited for,
and as the shadows lengthened and the wintry grimness grew,
the worried mother thought those thoughts that only mothers do.
In her mind she traced the path that led from school to home
as she fretted for her only son who now trod that path alone;
her thoughts flew to the muddy stream she knew he had to cross,
as she stifled a cry of anguish at the impossible thought of his loss.
Now the clock upon the wall seemed merciless in its ticking
as its old and blackened hands persisted in cruelly clicking,
for even as she looked, the minutes too swiftly flew,
and where her son was one hour late, now he was late by two!
Then as mothers will and for reasons I can’t explain,
she tried to ease her worried mind by busying herself again:
pots upon the stove were stirred, clean floors were thoroughly swept,
then all these things were done again, as her vigil there she kept.
Until at last she heard the sound she had desperately waited for
as a disheveled little ginger head peered around the kitchen door,
and there within his grubby hands was clasped his greatest prize:
a jam tin, where half a dozen tadpoles, lay gasping with bulging eyes!
Now it is more than sixty years since this story first took place,
More than half a century since I saw the tears bedew her face
and though I was but a little boy I somehow understood:
her tears were the price a woman pays for the joys of motherhood
and though I caused her many more nights of waiting fearfully -
I never forgot the night I saw my mother cry for me.
Vic Jefferies
(For all the mums who wait...)
Winter’s bitter gloom came softly creeping across the land,
engaging and defeating the sun’s last feeble strand,
the cold grey mist upon the mountain came slowly seeping down
encompassing and enshrouding the little country town.
Once again the mother’s face peered from the kitchen door,
but once again there was no trace of the child she waited for,
and as the shadows lengthened and the wintry grimness grew,
the worried mother thought those thoughts that only mothers do.
In her mind she traced the path that led from school to home
as she fretted for her only son who now trod that path alone;
her thoughts flew to the muddy stream she knew he had to cross,
as she stifled a cry of anguish at the impossible thought of his loss.
Now the clock upon the wall seemed merciless in its ticking
as its old and blackened hands persisted in cruelly clicking,
for even as she looked, the minutes too swiftly flew,
and where her son was one hour late, now he was late by two!
Then as mothers will and for reasons I can’t explain,
she tried to ease her worried mind by busying herself again:
pots upon the stove were stirred, clean floors were thoroughly swept,
then all these things were done again, as her vigil there she kept.
Until at last she heard the sound she had desperately waited for
as a disheveled little ginger head peered around the kitchen door,
and there within his grubby hands was clasped his greatest prize:
a jam tin, where half a dozen tadpoles, lay gasping with bulging eyes!
Now it is more than sixty years since this story first took place,
More than half a century since I saw the tears bedew her face
and though I was but a little boy I somehow understood:
her tears were the price a woman pays for the joys of motherhood
and though I caused her many more nights of waiting fearfully -
I never forgot the night I saw my mother cry for me.
Vic Jefferies