Poet Christine Swint is participating in Postcard Poem a Day and recently posted her poem-response to a postcard of El Greco's La Sagrada Familia. Her lovely little piece reminded me of one of my favorite poems. More poetry should be written about Mary and her sacrifice.
Prayer For A New Mother
Dorothy Parker
The things she knew, let her forget again-
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men
Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.
Let her have laughter with her little one;
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,
Grant her her right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king.
Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.
Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go
And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan
The proud and happy years that they shall know
Together, when her son is grown a man.
