Mother's Day is May 13 and we want your tributes to Mom -- stories, photos, blogs, poetry, portraits, paintings ... you know she's worth it. I'm happy to help you -- call 303-954-2362 or e-mail me at
dialt@yourhub.com.
Blogger's note: I wrote this poem in March 2006, when I was starting to co-facilitate poetry sessions with
Art from Ashes, a Denver nonprofit that empowers high-risk youth through creative art therapies that facilitate connection, healing and expression.
My Mother Taught Me Purple, by Evelyn Tooley Hunthad been read aloud to inspire our own poems for our mothers. Here's mine (subject to further revision):
Neila
My mother taught me purple-
in the Grand Junction evening sky
and the edges of the Colorado River.
My mother taught me purple-
like the insistent, infinite ink
I wrote my name in
over and over again
on pages of my teenage years.
My mother taught me purple-
and more than purple-
Purple isn't music,
purple doesn't organize
piano lessons and recitals,
doesn't remind you to hug
your relatives
and thank them
every time you see them.
Purple isn't waiting,
wishing it could feel like the clouds,
struggling to hold
yellow, pink andorange
before pulling on another night.
Purple isn't such burgundy.
No.
Purple doesn't live for crimson
and doesn't have the turquoise
to scare its demons away.
Purple doesn't wonder
what it is to be free, like white, or
fearless, like black.
Purple can't stretch up or out
and wave and dance the same way as green
or leave itself long and lost like blue.
My mother taught me purple
after she ran my hands, with hers,
through every rainbow
that crossed our skies.
Create a very cheap gift sure to takeMom by surprise:
Post your Mother's Day stuff.