15 Mother’s Day Poems That Will Melt Her Heart
Updated: Feb. 23, 2021Don't rack your brain for the right way to tell Mom how much she means to you when you can just borrow wise and wonderful words from great poets.
Poetry for Mom
It can be hard to find a way to show Mom just how much she means to you. There are all sorts of great Mother’s Day gifts you could give her, but why not share some poetry and impress her with these gorgeous words from some of history’s best-known poets? You can also share these powerful Mother’s Day quotes, or tailor them to your specific relationship with mother-daughter quotes and mother-son quotes.
The Gardener
if there are any heavens my mother will (all by herself) have
one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses….
& the whole garden will bow—e.e. cummings
You can’t beat these gorgeous Mother’s Day flowers as a gift for Mom.
![My mother would be a falconress,and I her [falcon] raised at her will, —Robert Duncan](https://www.rd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MotherPoems3.jpg?fit=696,696)
The Inspiration
My mother would be a falconress,
and I her [falcon] raised at her will,
from her wrist sent flying, as if I were her own
pride, as if her pride
knew no limits, as if her mind
sought in me flight beyond the horizon.—Robert Duncan
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The Cook
When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other’s work would bring us to our senses….
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives—
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.—Seamus Heaney
The Mirror
Maybe I am what she always wanted…
maybe I am what she wanted to be….
I lie here now as I once lay
in the crook of her arm, her creature,
and I feel her looking down into me the way
the maker of a sword gazes at his face
in the steel of the blade.—Sharon Olds
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The Haven
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name—Christina Rossetti
RELATED: Short, sweet stories about moms that will make you want to call yours
The Animal Lover
Mother doesn’t want a dog.
Mother says they shed,
And always let the strangers in
And bark at friends instead,
And do disgraceful things on rugs,
And track mud on the floor,
And flop upon your bed at night
And snore their doggy snore.
Mother doesn’t want a dog.
She’s making a mistake.
Because, more than a dog, I think
She will not want this snake.—Judith Viorst
RELATED: Funny poems that’ll make you laugh
The Dandelion Mother
How I loved those spiky suns,
rooted stubborn as childhood
in the grass, tough as the farmer’s
big-headed children—the mats
of yellow hair, the bowl-cut fringe.
How sturdy they were and how
slowly they turned themselves
into galaxies, domes of ghost stars
barely visible by day, pale
cerebrums clinging to life
on tough green stems. Like you.—Jean Nordhaus
The Best-Dressed Mother
Of course they are empty shells, without hope of animation.
Of course they are artifacts.
Even if my sister and I should wear some,
or if we give others away,
they will always be your clothes without you,
as we will always be your daughters without you.—Judith Kroll
Mom’s Mistake
Inside my lunch
to my surprise
a perfect heart-shaped
love note lies….I take it out
and wonder who
would want to tell me
“I love you.”….My stomach lurching
in my throat,
I open up
my little note.Then wham! as if
it were a bomb,
inside it reads,
“I love you—Mom.”—Ken Nesbitt
RELATED: Funny mother-child stories
The Handy Mother
How to describe
that world that mothers spin
and consume and trapand love us in, that spreads
for years and men and miles?
Those particular hands that couldsmooth anything: butter on bread,
cool sheets or weather. It’s
the wonder of them, good or bad,those mother-hands that pet
and shape and slap,
that sew you together
the pieces of a better house
or life in which you’ll try
to live.—Erin Belieu
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The Dreamer
Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection,
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.—Lola Ridge
Next, check out these other great motherhood quotes.