Some Quotes About Motherhood

This last week I was reminded of my favorite poem in Spanish.  I read it for the first time before I was a mom, now it is even more precious to me.  The author of this poem is Gabriela Mistral.  She was a self-educated prominent Chilean educator, the first Latin American winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945.  She never married and had no children of her own, but loved children and her nieces and nephews.

Meciendo

El mar sus millares de olas
mece divino
Oyendo a los mares amantes
mezo a mi niño.

 

El viento errabundo en la noche
mece los trigos
Oyendo a los vientos amantes
mezo a mi niño.

Dios Padre sus miles de mundos
mece sin ruido.
Sintiendo su mano en la sombra
mezo a mi niño.

Rocking

by Gabriela Mistral, post modernist Latin American poet

translated by Patricia L. Cummings

 

The sea, her thousands of waves
rock divinely.
Hearing the loving seas
I rock my child.

The wandering wind in the night
rocks the wheat.
Hearing the loving winds
I rock my child.

Father God, your thousands of worlds
 rock without sound.
 Feeling your hand in the shadows
 I rock my child.

 This is another quote I just read today.

"A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure, 

a messenger of peace and love,

a resting place for innocence on earth,

a link between angels and men."

Martin Tupper

This last week the babe in our house hasn't always felt like a messenger of peace.  She has had a bad earache and been very unhappy.  We finally got some antibiotics and a steroid on Tuesday and she seems like a new person.  We are returning to the well-spring of pleasure that she usually is in our house.  I have felt since she first came to stay with us as a newborn that she was a link between heaven and earth.

This is another poem written by Gabriela Mistral in her efforts to inspire educational reform in the 1920's and 1930's.

Su Nombre es Hoy
Somos culpables de tantos errores y tantas faltas.
Pero el peor de nuestros crímenes
es abandonar a los niños,
despreciando la fuente de la vida.
Muchas de las cosas que necesitamos pueden esperar.
El niño no puede.
Ahora es la hora,
Se están formando sus huesos,
Se está haciendo su sangre,
Y se están desarrollando sus sentidos.
No podemos responderle "mañana".
Su nombre es "hoy".
 

His Name is Today
“We are guilty of many errors and many faults,
But our worst crime is abandoning the children,
Neglecting the fountain of life.
Many of the things we need can wait,
The child cannot wait.
Right now is the time his bones are being formed,
His blood is being made,
And his senses are being developed.
To him we cannot answer ‘tomorrow’
His name is Today.

Just some thoughts on my mind today.