Dear Mother, This winter in Jersey kicked my ass Left me gasping for sunshine the way a drowning rat reaches for air from the top of a water-filled sewer This winter hammered me like an angry Thor Left me with a flu so hard I saw visions Visions that floated from the past like the white butterflies of my youth Visions of your hands cutting apricots at supersonic speed Hands picking golden prickly pear from crowd of cactus Soft hands applying egg-white to rusty nailed knees Quick hands turning tortillas and papas over in one sweet motion Hands coming together and praying so deeply, profoundly and faithfully that sometimes my soul would believe too Dear Mother, Even as I struggle to move past the cough, the Jersey blizzard past the cough that will not leave, I think of your struggle in the Valley of Hearts delight, land east of Salsipuedes Your strong arms and warm gaze raising ten children in the ceaseless battle for dignity and the tremendous sacrifice of your own desires Dear Mother, the only thing I can do then in response is pick up a pound of clay And speckled paintbrush and go to war for your giving heart Your giving heart that sings De Colores Your giving heart that makes me split the clay into dozens of precious sculptures, your hardscrabble tears that make me wash from the landscape a hundred watercolors Dear Mother, Sweet Madre, the spring is coming to Jersey Like a sheepish, shy lover and California with its cool Eucalyptus, exploding roses and baby’s breath blossoms seems only a block away I swear next door I smell the aroma of tamales, the scent of menudo, the tang of oregano and right here in my studio, you are standing next to me, guiding, feeding, imploring, scolding, bribing and most of all supporting me with all your singular motherly brilliance
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Eos: The Creative Context 
You’re poem humbles me. I read it with such joy and tears, both together to form a portrait of a mother’s love gone right.
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