My mother is the one pulling a snake from the inside of a truck tire.

She’s the one talking long to an old friend at the funeral home,

At Wal-Mart,

At school,

At church,

When I just wanted her to come on and go,

But I know better now.

She can get the stain out of any piece of clothing,

Can heal any animal,

Can teach a child that not every booboo needs a Band-Aid.

She gathers the green beans and cans them in the same jars her mother used.

She processes buckets of tomatoes into juice, or stewed whole, ready to go into a pot of chili this winter.

She makes cornbread and vegetable soup for lunch,

The first thing her mother taught her to cook

When she had to work in the fields

And she depended on her

As we all do.

My mother will rest,

Will sleep wrapped in a soft and fuzzy robe

Which she will do after she’s wrangled a flathead catfish

(Or five)

And found her own rod and reel that another one pulled in last week,

Hooked by chance in the waters below,

A happy surprise,

Same as the four kittens that Miss Bobtail brought up from her hiding spot this morning,

The best Mother’s Day gift of them all.