Sleep the Mother / Florence Kiper Frank

Sleep the Mother
from "For Barbara" Aged three and a little over

SLEEP, the mother, Has taken her over. She has slipped from my arms Into the arms of this other, Who has touched her softly, Who has flushed her with dreaming. This is not the same Sleep who gathers men Heavy with labor, Women drugged with pleasure. This is the mother Of little children only, Moving as a wind From white spaces, Flushing their faces With a soft flame, holily; To whom the mothers of the earth Give up their children Joyously, with a clean gladness, With only a little sadness, Such as hurts mothers For their mortality. For they remember also, Remembering swiftly, Death too is a mother! But now her lashes curl delicately, The blue veins of her eyelids Show sweetly in the soft skin, Her red mouth droops slowly…. Hovering over The child she is holding Is Sleep, the white mother, With arms enfolding!