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Mothering

It is a sacred rite
It is a sacred right
It is a maddening career
It is a controversial choosing
It is an extension of your woman-hood
It is a teaching of the totality of Life in too few semesters
It is a heart-wrenching loss of control
It is a seething curse of protective urges
It is a withering of hope with age
It is a longing for timelessness
It is a longing for less time
It is unsettling
It is grounding
It is everything
It is separate
It is pain
It is grief
It is light
It is life
It is love
It is hurt
It is silent
It is deafening
It is hard
It is hardening
It is softening
It is soft
It is.
Mothering is mine.


-Moni Padula
copyright 2016
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