My mother was a beautiful woman, inside and out. She was kind, generous, gracious, and 
hospitable to everyone she come into contact with. She loved people, and she saw “specialness” in very ordinary people and very ordinary events in life. Then she celebrated that “specialness” in poetry.
Yes, my mother was a poet. I don’t imagine anyone would call her work “world-shaking,” but it was a collection of words and emotions that gently lifted up the people and events in her “ordinary” life — and lifted up the God who had given all of them to her.
As I look at the clock on my computer screen, I see that we have just crossed into the “second day of spring,” and every spring I am reminded especially of two of my mother’s poems. They are probably my favorites of all of her work. Her book, Life Is Worth Living, includes poems on many subjects, and she even wrote a poem to me specifically at one point in her life. Each of those poems has its own unique place for its own unique reasons. But, somehow, for me, these two poems best represent my mother’s gifts for seeing “specialness” in small, everyday things. I’d like to share them with you.
NEW LIFE
Why the Crocus – a pretty little thing –
Should burst forth, the first sign of spring?
Though buried and dormant in snow and cold,
Will bear new blossoms, so bright and bold.
Of all the plants, like flowers and trees,
The Crocus is the first, the smallest of these;
A rainbow of colors, like one in the sky,
Yet so close to the earth. I wonder why
He chose the Crocus, so very, very small,
To show the world there is new life for all.
WISH I WERE A BUMBLEBEE
Now I’m safe high up in this tree.
Or could he be fooling me?
Gone away far too soon;
Hardly ever leaves ’till noon.
Oh, to bark or snarl or chase
Would take that grin off of his face.
Or if I were a bumblebee,
Bet that cat would be afraid of me!
One little wren don’t have a chance
When that arched back starts to prance.
But I will figure out how, some day,
To make him prance the other way.
Oh, for two horns – like a bull;
I’d show him just who had some pull.
Or if I were a bumblebee,
Bet that cat would be afraid of me!
Just like a snake in the grass,
Lie and wait for him to pass.
Or to buzz around his ears
Would show up some of his cat fears.
Oh, to sting him on the nose
Sure would keep him on his toes.
Yes, if I were a bumble bee,
That darn cat would be afraid of me!
Oh, to sting him on the nose
Sure would keep him on his toes.
Yes, if I were a bumblebee,
That darn cat would be afraid of me!
Poems: © 1979 Vera Faye Pavloff
Crocus Photo: © 2011 Brenda Calvert
Bird Photo: © 2011 Beautiful Free Pictures
The Happy Wordcrafter 