What We Carry
-for Ruth

Open any woman’s abundant pocketbook
and you will see
what she carries
to make it through
her days.

The shopping list.
The list “to do” jotted
on the back of an old envelope,
A comb
and a few coins
for the ferryman, pens, cough drops,
lip stick, ticket stubs,
earrings, apple slices and a few almonds.

Tissues and tablets for pain,
a wallet for photos of so many children
and a license to drive—
keys to everything.

But you carried us all
in your womb,
in your heart,
in your arms.

You carried us
in your dreams,
in your prayers,
in your hands.

You carried us in the river
of your body’s blood
to lighten our load,
to help us to see

to the ends of the earth
where memory
of the great ocean
of laughter
and peaceful words
lives in each wave
that touches our feet
on that path
across the sandy shore.