What I Learned from My Mother

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; 
but in deed and in truth.

I John 3:18

For my parents, who preach the gospel not by preaching words
but rather by their example.

What I Learned from My Mother

Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole 

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

 and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn't know 

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look into their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease 

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another's suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Thank you Leslie for introducing me to this poem.