Poems by MOBI Mothers

Some mothers have found writing poems to be a helpful way to express their emotions and feelings of grief. Sometimes, just reading a beautiful poem can also bring comfort. Here are a few poems written by some of our MOBI mothers. We hope they may provide you with comfort and inspiration.

Please feel free to share your own poems with us by sending us an email at [email protected].

Love and Nourishment are One

By Hilary Jacobson
I still need to hold you near
and feel your dear mouth close
about that tender part of me
where no milk flows.


This sacred thing that should have been,
this rite of every mother,
will not now, nor ever be
a bond, one to the other.


Yet though I feel this utter loss,
a nagging emptiness,
I also smell your warm skin close,
know you don’t need me less.


Song and smile, touch and glance,
we dance our dance until –
scent and hand, hold and clasp,
it’s clear: I love you still.


If love and nourishment are one,
and I love you just the same,
then let me give you love, my love,
that does not bend to shame.


If love and nourishment are one,
perhaps that’s all we need:
to trust our bond is ever here,
regardless how we feed.

Like So Many Tears

By Eliza Rayner Bicknell
As I stand in the shower this morning

I notice the many water droplets run down the side of the shower curtain

So many water droplets

Like so many tears

Tears I have shed and shed now under the running water

Running water washing the tears away

Gone, like the relationship I mourn

A bond between mother and child

I cannot have

A bond so natural, so normal

Its driven into every fiber of your being

Your soul, your mind, your body

You long to connect in such a way

A way that only a mother and child can

Through the breast and the body

An immense effort I gave to this

This journey at the start of motherhood

Only to find that I was physically unable

And so I mourn the loss

The loss of something I only barely got a glimpse of

But felt in my heart and longed for in my soul

The sadness overwhelms me

Overwhelms me like the water washes over me now