Poetry Sunday: Portrait

Reba Cromeans Aldridge
1921 - 2004
Thank you, Mother.

For Mother's Day, here is a short poem by Louise Gluck which says it all really. About mothers who draw in the hearts within our broad outlines.

Portrait
by Louise Gluck
A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing; she has cut
one background from another. Like a child,
she turns to her mother.

And you draw the heart
against the emptiness she has created.

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