Mother and Son

Mother and Son

Mother and Son

I must be less
than eighteen months old—
naked, in my mother’s arms,
face pressed against hers
as if danger was nearby.

We’re standing
in an empty field
with a hill in the background.
Thistles and weeds
grow around us, at our feet.
The sky’s a total blank.

With my arms wrapped
around her neck
she is smiling a smile of pure love.
You can see it in her eyes.
Her feet are planted
firmly on the ground.
Her floral dress hangs in folds.
There is something courageous
in the way she stands.

The setting is a Displaced Persons\' camp
in northern Germany
after the end of World War II.
She has no husband
and I have no father.
Does it make a difference
to how we feel?

Fifty-two years later,
on the night before she dies,
my mother will tell me his name
and the details of our lives.
(While she spoke
I asked few questions—
was content to let her say
what she wanted to
and what she didn’t . . . )

All that matters to me
is that smile of pure love;
all the money in the world
couldn’t buy it
and it would never be for sale.

Today, I stare for hours
at the photograph
and wonder who took it and why,
of a mother standing
with her son in her arms,
in a Displaced Persons’ camp—
in northern Germany
after there’s been a World War—
in a field of weeds and thistles,
under a blank sky.