What is love mommy?

What is love mommy? 
Where is it? 
Is in the adoring eyes of a lover? 
Burning wit a passion to posses and protect? 
The innocent smile of a child who looks to his mother? 
With untainted hope and trust? 

What is love mommy? 
Can you see it? 
Is it framed in the smiles and sparkling eyes of a couple? 
Who tenderly cradle a new born babe? 
Does it hang on a cross for those who care to see? 
Spilling out of those age old wounds with fervour? 

What is love mommy? 
Can you touch it? 
Is it in the faltering caress of a young man? 
Who experiences a woman for the first time? 
Is it in the gentle touch of a daughter? 
As she supports her dying father’s head? 

What is love mommy? 
Can you feel it? 
Is it in the strangling of a girl’s heart? 
As she hears of a lover’s departure? 
Is it in the ripping, the searing of a woman’s heart? 
As she hysterically denies her husband’s death? 

What is love mommy? 
Can you hear it? 
Is it in the cadences of a church congregation? 
As they raise their voices in consolidation of their Creator? 
Is it in the clamour of a husband and wife? 
As they silently shout to be heard? 

What is love mommy? 
Can you taste it? 
Is it in the fleeting hope that is sparked in a beggar’s eye? 
When a coin, a smile is tossed his way? 
Is it in the heart of a confused, broken teen? 
As he sits down to a family dinner in a friend’s home? 

What is love mommy? 
Is it ever-present at my shoulder? 
Will I find it if I stop chasing it so much? 
Only to discover, blinded by my search, 
It’s been there all along? 


Christina De Silva 
17 November 2008