Even when the ship had sunk, and we could float no more.

 

You engulfed those raging waters and plunged us back to shore.

 

When hunger struck on an empty purse and God could not see us poor.

 

You robbed the right to feed us all for who would need it more?

 

On those winter nights when we lay awake in our overcrowded beds

 

Where the cold had found those empty spots and we shook from toe to head,

 

An army coat or a warm milk bottle you placed between the sheets,

 

Then with weary hands and colder feet away from us you’d creep.

 

Seldom did we hear you cry, because you Slept that pain away

 

To poke those cinders in the early morn with the hopes of a better day.

 

It is to you Mom I write these lines hoping you can feel

 

the passionate soul that hovers low in a body still unhealed.

 

I know to be tough in a tougher world has taken the best of us down,

 

But at the crest of your existence please accept this well won crown.

 

For God choose you and only you to birth the thirteen of us,

 

Into the elements of a poor environment for better or for worse

 

If we survived it all because of your persistence

 

then the defining point of all Human Beings

 

is at the core of your existence