Mama’s Boy
In the dream there’s a black swan nearing you,
you bent over a book at water’s edge,
a young boy years from fathering your dreams
only now beginning to imagine life
beyond Linden Lane, the green leaves you love,
your mother, humming to the patter of rain,
tatting lace, her hands folded in prayer,
the quiet hours you sit together home,
home you don’t yet know you’ll always yearn for
though the black swan beckons you, her red beak
a lure you’ll follow. You’ll think you left home
behind, but it’s what you’ll carry with you,
a mother’s love, an eye for small beauty,
a reverence for the ordinary.
James Von Hendy (he, him) earned a BA in English and Philosophy at Boston College, and an MA in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A senior technical writer, engineering manager, life coach, and poet, his recent work has appeared in or is forthcoming in the Thanatos Review, Aji Magazine, Remington Review, Hubbub, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and others. He is also the author of a chapbook, Rain Dance. He lives in California in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains with his wife and their cats.
In the dream there’s a black swan nearing you,
you bent over a book at water’s edge,
a young boy years from fathering your dreams
only now beginning to imagine life
beyond Linden Lane, the green leaves you love,
your mother, humming to the patter of rain,
tatting lace, her hands folded in prayer,
the quiet hours you sit together home,
home you don’t yet know you’ll always yearn for
though the black swan beckons you, her red beak
a lure you’ll follow. You’ll think you left home
behind, but it’s what you’ll carry with you,
a mother’s love, an eye for small beauty,
a reverence for the ordinary.
James Von Hendy (he, him) earned a BA in English and Philosophy at Boston College, and an MA in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A senior technical writer, engineering manager, life coach, and poet, his recent work has appeared in or is forthcoming in the Thanatos Review, Aji Magazine, Remington Review, Hubbub, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and others. He is also the author of a chapbook, Rain Dance. He lives in California in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains with his wife and their cats.
