![\"BouquetAsparagus\"](\"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/BouquetAsparagus.jpg\" "\\"BouquetAsparagus\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Lanyard<\/strong> The other day I was ricocheting slowly No cookie nibbled by a French novelist I had never seen anyone use a lanyard She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and taught me to walk and swim, Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, that you can never repay your mother, \u2014Billy Collins<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Flowers, and a poem, for Mothers Day. The Lanyard The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room, moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary where my eyes fellRead more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[23,76,39,61,19,72,52],"class_list":["post-1534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-painting","tag-festival","tag-flowers","tag-food","tag-oil","tag-poem","tag-spring","tag-still-life"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\noff the blue walls of this room,
\nmoving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
\nfrom bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
\nwhen I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
\nwhere my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.<\/p>\n
\ncould send one into the past more suddenly\u2014
\na past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
\nby a deep Adirondack lake
\nlearning how to braid long thin plastic strips
\ninto a lanyard, a gift for my mother.<\/p>\n
\nor wear one, if that\u2019s what you did with them,
\nbut that did not keep me from crossing
\nstrand over strand again and again
\nuntil I had made a boxy
\nred and white lanyard for my mother.<\/p>\n
\nand I gave her a lanyard.
\nShe nursed me in many a sickroom,
\nlifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
\nlaid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
\nand then led me out into the airy light<\/p>\n
\nand I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
\nHere are thousands of meals, she said,
\nand here is clothing and a good education.
\nAnd here is your lanyard, I replied,
\nwhich I made with a little help from a counselor.<\/p>\n
\nstrong legs, bones and teeth,
\nand two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
\nand here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
\nAnd here, I wish to say to her now,
\nis a smaller gift\u2014not the worn truth<\/p>\n
\nbut the rueful admission that when she took
\nthe two-tone lanyard from my hand,
\nI was as sure as a boy could be
\nthat this useless, worthless thing I wove
\nout of boredom would be enough to make us even.<\/p>\n