“Honor your father and your mother, that may have a long life In the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you.”
Sir John Everett Millais artist (1829-1896)
Life’s sweetest mystery was introduced when God impregnated a virgin womb; unlike our mortal mother reproduced each cycle He designed from seed to tomb to solve a riddle each birth signifies.
From infancy, all our natures vary in different degrees of innocence; embracing, or disgracing, Holy Mary – God’s shield against filial insolence through confidence Christ found in Mary’s eyes.
Compassion pays a visit to surmise earth parents grow beyond first position, reverting to the ruse of childish eyes suddenly devoid of definition. Why should that always take us by surprise?
Our mother’s screams at birth hid father’s cries. We fed at Mother’s breast and Mother smiled, thanking our father with her serene sighs. So soon, parents become their children’s child . . . What just reality that thought implies!
Engraved by Pietro Bettelini after a picture by Raffaele Sanzio.
The Curator’s Notes: This poem moves from the cosmic (Incarnation) to the intimate (aging parents becoming dependent on their children) to explore the full meaning of honoring father and mother. It’s both deeply personal and anticipatory; written by a dying woman who just buried her own mother and thinking about her own children caring for her as her dependence increases.
The Coping Stones 