If not for the Mothers & Other Poems
Content Guidance: The poem “If not for the Mothers” references a school shooting.
Photo Courtesy | Jill Yancey
BY JILL YANCEY
If not for the Mothers
Three stories, no more,
You read three.
First, the article that shares just the facts:
A shooter. An eighteen-year-old male. An elementary school.
Next, the personal interview with the dad:
His daughter was only seven.
Last, the post on Facebook from your friend, a teacher:
“Arming us is not the answer.”
You wonder if you shouldn’t have read the stories,
But you know you can’t look away,
Who will keep watch, if not for the mothers?
You pull up to the school at the end of the day,
Your children hop in the car —
Messy hair and red cheeks from recess.
When the car door shuts —
Your children safely inside —
You let out the breath you didn’t know
You’d been holding,
And you wish it were peace,
Not relief you felt
come the end of every school day.
Evidence Enough
I believe it is possible to prove that
Magic is real,
If one has observed
a child for long enough.
I think this as I watch Remi
On this warm,
Summer eve.
The sky has not yet taken
its full plunge into night,
So my view is lit by
The cerulean sky as
Remi dances with fireflies.
How would you define magic?
Is it the rabbit pulled out of the hat?
Or would you say,
it is anything not of this world?
I do not know how to define magic,
But I know it when I see it,
When I feel it.
When she runs to me,
Her smile wide
As she holds light cupped in her hands,
Her tippy-toes as she lets this light go,
The flicker of a single firefly
Still lighting my mind and my soul,
Surely that is evidence
Enough for me.
I am a Mother
I am a mother, the average kind.
I clean, and I drive, and I yell, and I apologize,
And so on — you know what they say,
The many hats, and all that,
I’m a Mom.
My children are swimming right now,
All of them happy — I think.
And last night I watched a movie with them,
Although I did fall asleep,
And they finished their first school year
In their new home and have learned
What it means to grieve, and to miss, and to rise, and to grow,
And they are such good kids,
And there are days I wish to be free.
Unattached.
As I was before,
When my heart had space
And my lungs had room to breathe.
Unattached As I was when I longed to be a mother.
As full-time mother to four kids, a published writer, and Community Manager for Tell(h)er Co, Jill Yancey has learned to combine passion with parenthood. Most early mornings or late nights, she can be found writing in the fleeting quiet of her crowded-but-joyful South Carolina, USA home.
Her first novel, a careful examination of the mother-daughter relationships that have always captured her curiosity, is currently in production. She invites you to subscribe to Dear Writer, a monthly love letter to her fellow writers, and join in her #dailymemoir practice on Instagram @jillwritesabook.