mama bear

I had all sorts of other poetic names for this piece, but this is the one that stuck. This one began as a piece about war (specifially, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and bystanders caught in the crossfire. It evolved into a simpler and harder meditation on parenting. On any given day, if your child asked you, "Can you keep me safe?" then you, if you were to be truly honest, would have to answer, "No." That simple truth brings up all sorts of feelings: rage; helplessness; fear; love; sadness. We cannot have what we fervently desire: to protect those we most love from all harm. But we can't shut it down, either: the force of that fierce wish is one of the measures of great love.