On Mother's Day Consider the Faith and Courage of this Mother who saw her 7 Sons Die for their Beliefs...

[The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord.  She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman's reasoning with a man's courage, and said to them,  "I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you.  Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws."] 2 Maccabees 7:20-23

The Effect of Martyrdom...

[If it were possible for us to paint the history of your religion as an artist might, would not those who first beheld it have shuddered as they saw the mother of the seven children enduring their varied tortures to death for the sake of religion?  Indeed it would be proper to inscribe on their tomb these words as a reminder to the people of our nation:  "Here lie buried an aged priest and an aged woman and seven sons, because of the violence of the tyrant who wished to destroy the way of life of the Hebrews.  They vindicated their nation, looking to God and enduring torture even to death."  Truly the contest in which they were engaged was divine,  for on that day virtue gave the awards and tested them for their endurance. The prize was immortality in endless life.] 4 Maccabees 17:7-12

(The above passages from the NRSV/Apocrypha)

Keep it not...Give it away! "

~May Lyn

Oh the scents and sights I'll encounter today...
Mom's taking me out to play!
I get so anxious I go round and round,
Knowing "The Park" is where I'm bound.
A tree there, a bush here,
I remember, it's very clear.
Elephants have nothing on me,
Thanks to my canine memory! 

~May Lyn 2012

~May Lyn 2012 

It's time for the Peepers to sound,

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Everyone watches clouds,

naming creatures they've seen.

I see sky differently,

I see the blue between--

The blue woman tugging

her stubborn cloud across the sky.

The blue giraffe stretching

to nibble a cloud floating by.

A pod of dancing dolphins,

cloud oceans, cargo ships,

a boy twirling his cloud

around a thin blue fingertip.

In those smooth wide places,

I see a different scene.

In those cloudless spaces,

I see the blue between.

~Kristine O' Connell George   

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"Some look at the cloudy scene...some the in-between." ML

I feel all poems have importance in their own right. The initial insight, of course, belongs to the author, but maybe it might connect with someone else where the two may agree, thereby producing the same emotions in each person. 

I can't bring myself to judge or rate a poem. How can I judge or rate what comes from someone's innermost feelings or experiences? Not all have an affinity for the same insights. The poems I like best may not be the ones that someone else likes best.

How would you respond to this question: "What is a poem?" Not all would answer the same. Why not?