Tuesday Poem: Tulips

The tulip heads

are as heavy and round

in my hands as a baby’s head.

I cradle the red.

My arms and hands are

shaped exactly as mother.

I am mother, look,

I can hold like one,

look, I can feel like one,

look, how the heads droop

and the black eyes open.

I must not weaken and

let them fall.

                                 Mary McCallum

I wrote this before I had children. I remember the tulips in the apartment in Athens, their exquisite colour and delicacy, and their unexpected heaviness. They were red not yellow, but this photo of tulips I bought a week or two ago will have to do. 

Having had three children, the feelings I wrote of aged 24 hold true - the picture of 'Mother' as nurturer and protector, feeling one has to project that, but fearful too that one won't be strong enough to do what's expected.  

For the hub poem by Michele Amas - the wonderful 'home to you' - click on the quill in the sidebar here, or go here. And there are stimulating offerings in the TP sidebar by the other Tuesday Poets that deserve to be read too. Take a moment.