for Mother's Day! from Joanne Giannino's Amulet Series

Joanne Giannino, top of center row

Appropriate to post with the following poem by Joanne Gianino is this screen shot of the Wednesday Poets meeting, April 29. Joanne is at top in center row; at her right is some of a print of a painting by San Antonio artist Nephtali DeLeon of Our Lady of GuadaLiberté, his vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Statue of Liberty combined.  (Our Lady of Guadalupe, a cross-cultural ikon in the Southwest, is Mary as she appeared to a Mexican peasant, Juan Diego, in Mexico in 1531.)

Especially appropriate this close to Mother's Day -- both in the United States and Mexico, this year, not always -- Joanne's poem for Mary in her Amulet Series:

The Amulet Series, #2

       “When I find myself in times of trouble…” Sir Paul McCartney

Mother Mary comforts me...

O Maria Madre della Misericordia

O Mother Mary of Mercy

Mother Mary have mercy on us all...

Today’s earrings

were a gift from my best friend Beverly

we are both Catholic girls by birth and raising

we collect rosary beads

I got her rainbow ones in Italy once

she got me scented ones from Palestine

we collect Mary’s too

Mary from Mexico

Mary from Sicily

Mary, Mother of God

Theotokas in Greek

the Virgin Mother in the language of our childhoods

Today Mary, also known in pagan circles as one face of the Goddess

brings mercy to the broken

brings faith to the lost

brings an embrace to the scared                                   

"Today's earrings..."

brings, with her son, Jesus,

the risen fruit of her womb

“the green blade that riseth,”

the knowing that no matter

what Life throws at you

we can get through it together

the knowing that Love conquers all

that after death comes life

even after three days of grief and loneliness

there is a way forward

Mother Mary comforts me...

O Maria Madre della Misericordia

O Mother Mary of Mercy

Mother Mary have mercy on us all...

                                                    JMG 29/3/2020