Marta

When I couldn't speak
she played Dvorak and Vivaldi
When I began to grow up, she was there
every step of the way

When puberty came along
she let Ipanema and Copacabana teach me
and they taught me well
and when I loved for the first time
and my young heart broke
she left me alone, for I locked myself up for days
at a hotel room in Buenos Aires
a few days later she gave me Garcia Marques

When I got into fights, even those I shouldn't have
she told me to hit harder
"cause you have lot's of Mother"

When I needed support and care
she would be an ocean of love
she still is
and then she showed me Octavio Paz
Picasso, Jesus and Van Gogh
Guayasamin, Aleijadinho and Renoir
she taught me to treat everybody the same
where I'm from and who I am
and how freedom
and the freedom to pursue love
is a right worth dying for
she taught so well
I find myself doing things like her

and while all this learning
and nurturing
and growing up happened
she always took the time to stop, and stop me
to look at my surroundings
listening to silence
admiring the majesty of forests
mountains, clouds, people, flowers
how the beauty of the Universe implodes
into just one single petal
into just one single moment

She's the saint that raised a devil
that from her love grew wings
not just my tutor and my guide
simply put she's everything.

"Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of "Mother"
- Edgar Allan Poe