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Tomas O’Leary grew up in Somerville. He is a poet, translator, music maker, singer, artist and expressive therapist. He has a volume of new and selected poems from Lynx House Press, In the Wellspring of the Ear. His previous books of poetry are Fool at the Funeral, The Devil Take a Crooked House, and A Prayer for Everyone. His poems have been published in a wide variety of literary journals.

Mother Love

Tomas O’Leary

The silence of her son at prayer

Was more than Mother Love could bear

For she had borne him loud and lusty

Fed him milk and peanut butter

Taught him speech and not to mutter

Gave him wing and off he flew

So genial was the bond they knew

There was no coming back to her

Nor praying loudly for her sake

He was that son who’d spy damnation

In a dog’s ear, or a marble

Knocked from glory by a marble

He was that son and she his mother

Mother Love and son so silent

As he prays for Mother Love

— Tomas O’Leary

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