
A villanelle for Mother's Day
Should take me just about an hour:
Writing it is child's play.
Because I know just what to say,
And rhyming's quite within my power,
To write it should be child's play.
Yet plain speech is not my way:
I look for leaves to shade my flower,
This villanelle for Mother's Day.
I do not wish to sound too fey,
Obscure, mystic, gushy, sour--
Arggh! Writing's never child's play!
Yes, childish! To my dismay,
Far beyond the allotted hour,
This villanelle for Mother's Day
Dawdles on. Let me just say
It plain: I love you, and so end our
Villanelle for Mother's Day.
(Well ... writing it was child's play.)
Mother's Day is a day honoring mothers celebrated on various days in many places around the world.

Different countries celebrate Mother's Day on various days of the year because the day has a number of different origins.
One school of thought claims this day emerged from a custom of mother worship in ancient Greece, which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of Greek gods. This festival was held around the Vernal Equinox around Asia Minor and eventually in Rome itself from the Ides of March (15 March) to 18 March.
The ancient Romans also had another holiday, Matronalia, that was dedicated to Juno, though mothers were usually given gifts on this day.
In some countries Mother's Day began not as a celebration for individual mothers but rather for Christians.
For all that you have given me,
I can return but love. For you
Bound up the wounds I did not see
And gave me hopes and passions new.
I can return but love for you,
Whose unmoved faith my heart did move,
And gave me hopes and passions new,
And loved me till I turned to love.
Whose unmoved faith did my heart move?
The mother of my heart, not blood,
Who loved me till I turned to love.
And I became the soul I would.
The mother of my heart, not blood,
Bound up the wounds I did not see.
And I became the soul I would
For all that you have given me.


