Your Legacy Must Be Both Love and Fear

Subscribe to this site on Substack

Subscribe to this site on YouTube

Subscribe to this site on Medium

Follow this site on Facebook

Follow this site on Instagram

Hear me read
the poem as
an MP3 file.

Watch me read
the poem as
a YouTube video.

Video Music:
Concatenate.
By Damiano Baldoni.
Performed by Damiano Baldoni
at the Free Music Archive
under an Attribution
license.

Alpha List

Mother's Day
Poems

Poems About
Death

Poems About
Health and
Sickness

Sad Poems

About This
Site

Poems for
Free

Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon

Your legacy must be both love and fear.
I know that when you died, you feared for me.
The family curse you carried in your breast
Was not a gift you wanted to pass on.

But fear of it, just like my love for you,
Must linger in my heart, unwelcome guest!
And as I weep for your too early death,
I also can hear rumblings of my own.

Ah, Mother! We are linked like paper dolls,
A line of little cutouts in a row.
I see my clearest memories in my mirror
And feel your anguish bloom beneath my breast.

For this, my love for you is more, not less.
In our misfortune there's a common grace:
For me, in that you must have grieved for me;
For you, in what you knew I'd feel for you.

Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.

Video Music: Concatenate. By Damiano Baldoni. Performed by Damiano Baldoni
at the Free Music Archive under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

[about this site] [poems for free] [poem of the week]
[site policy] [about me] [links]