In this poem, storms, leaves, and the changing seasons are not merely landscapes of nature, but metaphors for a mother’s life. It speaks of how time leaves its traces upon a person, and how love, through those very marks, grows deeper, gentler, and more luminous.
Reading this poem is like gently touching a mother’s face in the wind—fragility and resilience emerge side by side; the weight of passing years becomes quietly visible, along with the understanding that some kinds of love, precisely because they have endured storms, become even more precious.
Oh, Mother
by Cathy Xinman
Storms
have been arriving all day long—
arriving at the shore,
arriving farther and deeper,
bearing their own weight,
sweeping across everything,
as if destruction
were inevitable.
Oh, and yet the leaves remain steadfast,
facing burial,
facing the fall.
If I were to tell you
that in the next moment
the world would lose its light,
would you still choose
to be a leaf?
Oh, Mother,
what April has done to you
will surely let summer ripen.
In all the places
where storms have passed,
I cannot help but love you.
Autumn will inevitably arrive.
I love the beautiful remnants of your face,
love what time
has written upon you.
Now, the hollow sky
has reached your resilience and grace.
And I confess—
my trembling heart.
Cathy Xinman writes poetry in English and Chinese. Find her English-language collection, Where You Love Yourself, on Amazon. You can also hear her poetry on her TikTok page.
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