The ProCreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 24th edition of this scholarly discourse intersects with the artistic to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital, and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work, and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA
Art by Elisabeth Schön
Words by Judy Swann
Fool
I threw rose petals on the ground
and her pink slippers slid on that silky surface, the Muse, when she came just now.
Her small hooves have worn every fabric, every skin, every color, my kids
try them on when she slips them off.
Her little goat horns wobbled and she scolded, “Why am I not connecting? Why so many dreams and so little in my basket, Fool?”
By ‘Fool’ she meant ‘Innocent Child.’ She said, and I could see her beard, she said, “Tell me that you love me.”
“I am,” I said, “not sleeping alone.”
She said, “Tell me that you love me.”
I said she was always on my mind, I called
As often as I could. She said, “Tell me
that you love me.” I said “I’ve spent twenty years, two husbands, and all my thrift on those roses.”
Judy Swann is a poet, essayist, translator, mom, blogger, and bicycle commuter, whose work has been published in many venues both in print and online, including the Mom Egg Review. Her son is (always) on his way home. Her book, We Are All Well: The Letters of Nora Hall has given her great joy. She loves. She lives in Ithaca, NY.