I’ve just read a wonderful poem by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins called “The Lanyard.” Do you know it? If you have a tendency (like I do) to get weepy, please grab a tissue before you read it. And if you can, watch Mr. Collins read it himself. I’ve watched it five times already. (Here’s the definition of lanyard, just in case.) Thank you for sharing this, Marta.
I have nearly thirteen years’ worth of painted pots, hand-traced flowers, colorful sand-covered vases, and macaroni necklaces. I’m sure the poet’s mother would agree that these childhood tributes are more than payment enough, especially when paired with a grubby hug and kiss.
The Lanyard
The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past —
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the archaic truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
[…] then my treat to myself will be to watch the video of Billy Collins reading “The Lanyard” for the umpteenth time. Collins perfectly captures the essence of the mother-child relationship in […]