For My Mother (For Charles James)

it is by the firm,
yet loving hand of my mother
that i am here today...
she taught me to read,
mathematics, reasoning,
and to question...
most of all,
she taught me to respect!
she beat her image of God
into every fibre of my being...

i've travelled far,
and sank low many times.
but i've always heard her voice,
seen her face in the night.

i am perhaps not
what she would have wanted,
but i am definitely me.
and i am her son!