Pictured with visitor to Africa Jackie Smith is Zulu Queen Mother of the Nazareth Baptist Church of South Africa. What a beautiful photograph to remind us of our ancestors, our blood mothers, spiritual mothers, and mothers of our communities and villages around the world!

I think of my own mother now, who is not only the matriarch of the family but who has been a spiritual force in my life and the lives of many. She is a retired school teacher now living with my father in Slidell, LA. My parents moved in with my brother and my sister-in-law following the Katrina cataclysm.

Last Mother's Day I wrote the poem "One Too Many Times" in honor of my mother for the holiday. It was subsequently published in the British ezine Poetry Life & Times. The poem means more now to me and family members than it did then given all that has transpired over the past year.

In addition to "One Too Many Times", I have four other poems that may be relevant to readers over the Mother's Day celebration. In them you will see different types of mothers, relationships with mothers, and the legacies of good mothers. The poems are listed as follows:

"Mama's hands working grace" (poem added May 2007)

"Mother of Our Flesh"

"This Mother's Son in Starlight", a poem comforting a son after the death of his mother

"Three"