"The Lanyard" by Billy Collins and "Mothers" by Nikki Giovanni

Today I'm posting two poems: "Lanyard" by Billy Collins and "Mothers" by Nikki Giovanni. I've probably posted Giovanni's poem before, but it's beautiful and I love it.

The Lanyard
by Billy Collins

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly 
off the blue walls of this room 
bouncing from typewriter to piano 
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, 
I found myself in the 'L' section of the dictionary 
where my eyes fell upon the word, Lanyard. 
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist 
could send one more suddenly into the past. 
A past where I sat at a workbench 
at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake 
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard. 
A gift for my mother. 
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard. 
Or wear one, if that's what you did with them. 
But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand 
again and again until I had made a boxy, red and white lanyard for my mother. 
She gave me life and milk from her breasts, 
and I gave her a lanyard 
She nursed me in many a sick room, 
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips, 
set cold facecloths on my forehead 
then led me out into the airy light 
and taught me to walk and swim and I in turn presented her with a lanyard. 
'Here are thousands of meals' she said, 
'and here is clothing and a good education.' 
'And here is your lanyard,' I replied, 
'which I made with a little help from a counselor.' 
'Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, 
strong legs, bones and teeth and two clear eyes to read the world.' she whispered. 
'And here,' I said, 'is the lanyard I made at camp.' 
'And here,' I wish to say to her now, 
'is a smaller gift. Not the archaic truth, 
that you can never repay your mother, 
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands, 
I was as sure as a boy could be 
that this useless worthless thing I wove out of boredom 
would be enough to make us even.'



Mothers
by Nikki Giovanni

the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm   
comforting silence around
us and read separate books

i remember the first time
i consciously saw her
we were living in a three room   
apartment on burns avenue

mommy always sat in the dark
i don’t know how i knew that but she did

that night i stumbled into the kitchen
maybe because i’ve always been
a night person or perhaps because i had wet
the bed
she was sitting on a chair
the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through   
those thousands of panes landlords who rented
to people with children were prone to put in windows   
she may have been smoking but maybe not
her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth   
and very black

i’m sure i just hung there by the door
i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady

she was very deliberately waiting
perhaps for my father to come home   
from his night job or maybe for a dream
that had promised to come by   
“come here” she said “i’ll teach you   
a poem: i see the moon
               the moon sees me
               god bless the moon
               and god bless me”   
i taught it to my son
who recited it for her
just to say we must learn   
to bear the pleasures
as we have borne the pains





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