Mother and child

Dark maybe the path they're taking
All steps as sure as those in the morning
Mother and daughter walking and talking
One cool and starless night
Each the light to the other

The rain has stopped and gave them time
The water cleared their paths
Moonlight guiding their every step
The silence carries their voices
To nobody's ear but mine

The older was sharing her regrets in life
The younger her regrets yesterday
The mother was fearful of her past
The child afraid of her future
Uncertainty has a way of scaring

To the world they are alone
But to each other they're not
In this cool and pleasant night
I'm witnessing love at its purest
Only God's own is greater

Story behind the poem:

I started writing this poem late last year. It was about nine o'clock in the evening when the jeepney I was riding home passed by an empty street near the Cogon market area. I think I was only the fifth person in the jeepney. It rained earlier that night so the air has a certain coolness to it. The jeepney had no sound system. All these factors combined for a very reflective ride home. We turned right a certain street and we passed by a woman in her thirties walking with a nine or ten year-old girl. I immediately thought I could make a poem out of it and I think I'm right. Why else would I be posting this if I don't? Sure, I just assumed that they were a mother and a daughter. But it doesn't matter. Only those without imagination would object.

I wrote the first three stanzas in one sitting and then I forgot about it. I stumbled upon it now, about five months later, and added the final stanza. And I'm posting it before I forget about it again. I planned to write a longer poem than this, but then I thought I just want to describe a mother and a daughter talking one cool night, anyway. Poems don't need to have lessons. And I can add lines to it in the future if I have to.

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers (biological or not, to those Wendy Moira Angela Darling's of the world).