A Mother's Burden

In brief, it is not always a
daughter resolving never to live
the deprived and unfortunate life
of her mother, unkindly dealt with
by furtive fortune, for there are
no such monopolies; results are as
multifarious as peoples' idiosyncratic
reactions to which fork of the road
they will select on life's journey.

Sometimes a mother looks back
in sorrow to recapture memory
wondering when it was her daughter's
journey from carefree to careworn
occurred, a transition she had never
herself experienced but thought
she had armed her child against;
guiding, exposing, pleading.

To no avail. We each make, then own
our very own intimate history.