Yarrow House

Exchange

I watch my mother tend her mother 
as tenderly as she would 
a loved and respected four-year-old. 
They’re navigating the passage of care

from parent to child, hand over hand 
along the chain of blood. “She needs help
with dressing now, but she still picks out her clothes.”
Their lives rotate around each other,

old favors now returning,
the child reaching out to shoulder
the waxing burden of responsibility.
I study how to accept it, watch how

it’s given up graciously though with regret,
for a moment, and then with relief
as she settles back into her baby’s arms.

Published in Borderlands, Court Street Press, Seattle: 1999

Onetime reproduction for non-resale purposes permitted by the author with the following credit line:  by Judith Yarrow