Classic Poem

The little old mother at the street corner:
The simple woman, so perfectly dressed, wearing the tiny cap over her gray hair:
I can see her now from these near days way back in those far years:
I can see her now sitting on a box by her apple stand next the curb:
I can see her smiles to the passers by, her courtesies to her customers:
I can hear her voice lifted to me in salutation: I stop for a minute as I hurry to work:
I can see the strong nose on her dear face and the big wide open still clear blue eyes:
It all seems just like yesterday, just like today, just like this minute:
It all seems so close and so sacred: the long gone time: the bent tired serene reticent figure: a symbol of peace in the warring town.

Well: you have caught me alone with my heart: I am not ashamed of my heart:
Yes: you have caught me with tears in my eyes: I am not ashamed of my tears:
You remember and mourn for kings on thrones, in arts, of money—the few false heirs:
I remember and mourn for the people, for the outraged crowd, for the untitled millions—the countless true children.
Take your rulers, your geniuses, your offices, your arrogant decorations—
Leave me the common ways, the average, the dusty road: I tear the medals from my breast:
Yes: you have caught me alone with my heart and in tears: I am not ashamed of my heart and my tears.

Dear old mother! They say you are forgotten: they say so: were buried away in the ground plenty of years ago for good:
They lie, old mother: I do not forget you: I celebrate you:
They lie: I never put you into a grave—I put you away in my heart:
Do you hear, mother?—in my heart: and there you have been ever since.
Dear old mother: the great men hold meetings in honor of each other—they make a vast hurrah about their size:
I stand aside, old mother: I will only hold meetings in your honor: in your honor—for no one else:
They set each other on thrones and bow low to each other and play that they are superior:
I dont set you on a throne, I dont bow low to you, but I see that you are supreme.
That's how it comes about, old mother, that you are alive and well this day as I write about you with a pen—
That's how it is that I reach down to you again and again now as you used to ask me to then and kiss you a boy's kiss on your mother lips:
That's why, mother: and that's why my tears flow and why I am glad beyond all other satisfactions to stand alone with you against the pride of the world.

They took my mother away and put her in a grave,
And all around me mothers were taken away and put in graves,
And so I felt that mothers died and somehow were lost for forever and ever,
And I often went by you and received your “how are you sonny” not really knowing you,
And when with a friendly smile you gave me the specked fruit that nobody would buy I was grateful but did not know you,
And when I stopped and you asked me questions about myself and told me about a cat you had at home and such things I was pleased but did not know you,
And so it went on like that for a long long time, my seeing you yet not knowing you:
Then one day I awoke: after passing you something struck me—some light, some pang, within:
I went back to you—you wondered—you looked up: I said nothing—only kissed you:
God! how impossible worlds opened into impossible worlds with that kiss!
God! how stars reached to stars, souls to souls, all space to all space and all time to all time, with that kiss!
You knew something was happening to me—you didn't know what: you stroked my cheek with your open hand.

From that day to all days, little mother, things were so different to me:
I saw in your face all the mother faces of the earth,
I saw that no mothers ever died—that that was a clumsy calumny,
I saw that my own mother and my comrade mothers and every mother lived on and on without limit,
I saw them all sitting there with you on the little box by the apple stand filling flushing the highway with their illuminating maternity—
Sitting there with you while all motherhood grew bigger and bigger and covered the heavens and all the big buildings shrunk smaller and smaller and vanished from sight:
I saw all the pageantry of the social order cower before the verity of your wrinkled face and the apples and pears spread out for sale and the little bag of pennies at your waist:
It all came to me in that flash from God knows where: all through you:
All came to me, little mother, some way out of your hand touching me and out of your words spoken to me in love.

I hear a voice: it has something particular to say to me: “sonny” it calls me:
What has the voice to say to me? I guess I know: it calls me away from the bypaths to itself on the main road:
I see a face: the face is grave and beautiful with age: it has something particular to convey to me:
That face coming to me in many faces—in all faces of old women I pass on the street;
That voice coming to me in many voices—in all voices of old women I pass on the street:
It calls me from my little river to its big sea: it calls me: I set full sail: I go:
The mother voice, the mother gesture, calling me: I hurry: I go:
Do not argue with me: my decision is made: mother, O mother, where are you?
Let me hear your voice again: O mother, O mother, I come: receive me:
Ah! you are there—I feel your arm about me—I am safe.

Yes: I see her now, just as if it was this minute, just as if it was first going on as I write:
She takes me out of my transitory death into her inexpugnable life:
The little old mother at the street corner.