Mother's Day (to my children) I do not doubt you would have likedone of those pretty mothers in the ads:complete with adoring husband and happy children.She's always smiling, and if she cries at allit is absent of lights and camera,makeup washed from her face. But since you were born of my womb, I should tell you:ever since I was small like youI wanted to be myself -- and for a woman that's hard --(even my Guardian Angel refused to watch over mewhen she heard). I cannot tell you that I know the road.Often I lose my wayand my life has been a painful crossingnavigating reefs, in and out of storms,refusing to listen to the ghostly sirenswho invite me into the past,neither compass nor binnacle to show me the way. But I advance,go forward holding to the hopeof some distant portwhere you, my children -- I'm sure --will pull in one dayafter I've been lost at sea. ~ Daisy Zamora ~ (Clean Slate, trans. by Margaret Randall and Elinor Randall)