As the second Sunday of May approaches, mothers – all those literal, legal, and figurative mothers who bore us or reared us or mentored us – fill our minds. May your thoughts at this time be joyful and multitudinous. And, if they are not, may nature, popularly personified as the ultimate maternal figure, provide you with inspiration and solace.

Eve: The Naming

( In memory of Denise Levertov)

by Kathleen Hirsch

A paper sky ,

a blazing fig,

what deep, forgotten memory

in a tree?

I see myself

long ago -- a being

newly sprung

a dawn-struck slip of green.

From deep within

a blind and senseless solitude

I heard my name,

and woke to a desire

still unnamed:

To taste the light

within the flame --

To speak to fire

from a heart of flesh.

To know for whom

or what I longed.

Unleafed in all but my desire,

I had, I saw, arrived.

Kathleen Hirsch, M.A., is the author of three works of nonfiction, Songs from the Alley, A Home in the Heart of the City, and A Sabbath Life: One Woman’s Search for Wholeness. She co-edited Mothers, a collection of contemporary fiction. Currently, she directs the Contemplative Writing Program at Bethany House of Prayer in Arlington, MA, where she leads workshops on poetry and spiritual journaling. “Eve - The Naming” is from the forthcoming collection, Mending Prayer Rugs. Her website is: www.kathleenhirsch.com.