When I was a girl,
with my pigtails and curls,
I would say to myself
“I will conquer the world.”

But the world answered back,
“Will you paint, will you act?
Can you be something more
Than the things which you lack?”

And my face turned to blue
for I believed it was true.
But my mother, she’d say
“My dear, I know you…”

Will be kind, you’ll be brave,
you’ll be open to change.
And these are the things that
you’ll be.

I’m now tall and without
trails of freckles about.
So you’d think that I might
have it all figured out.

But I don’t seem to fit
any path – any bit!!
Will I search for the moon
or just write about it?

And it does make me sad
for I can’t dance, I can’t add.
But my mother, she tells me
the things that I have…

I am kind, I am brave,
I am open to change.
And these are things that
I am.

And my mother grows too,
from a plum to a prune.
And she’ll soon say goodbye
to the life she once knew.

And people, they’ll wonder,
they’ll ask and they’ll ponder
“Was she queen of the world,
Or just somebody’s mother?”

But she’ll be in trees
in the best parts of me.
She will be everything
that she taught me to see.

She’ll be kind, she’ll be brave,
she will constantly change.
And these are the things that
my mother will be.

By MADDY PETTIT
Staff Writer