Featured Poetry Selection. Happy Mother’s Day.

Hurry by Marie Howe

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry –
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.

Marie Howe, former poet laureate of New York, and 2025 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Poetry, for New and Collected Poems.

Hurry was selected for its poignancy in life, and especially today, when we honor our mothers, and acknowledge the challenges of motherhood over time. Often in our “hurry,” we miss the moment. Maybe not today…