8 Valentine’s Day Poems For Moms Who Love Literary Moments

If you've ever wondered who is behind all those greeting card poems, look no further than poet Helen Steiner Rice. In fact, according to the Helen Steiner Rice Foundation website, her first books were compilations of poems she wrote and mailed her own friends and family.

Until I became a mom, I really didn't understand the depth of my mom's love for me, and how darn patient she has been with me over all these years. Good grief, have I been a brat on more than one occasion! "A Mother's Love" by Helen Steiner Rice captures the enigmatic quality of a mother's love, perfect for Valentine's Day. It goes like this:

A Mother's love is something

that no on can explain,

It is made of deep devotion

and of sacrifice and pain,

It is endless and unselfish

and enduring come what may

For nothing can destroy it

or take that love away . . .

It is patient and forgiving

when all others are forsaking,

And it never fails or falters

even though the heart is breaking . . .

It believes beyond believing

when the world around condemns,

And it glows with all the beauty

of the rarest, brightest gems . . .

It is far beyond defining,

it defies all explanation,

And it still remains a secret

like the mysteries of creation . . .

A many splendoured miracle

man cannot understand

And another wondrous evidence

of God's tender guiding hand.

As moms, we all know in our hearts that we should appreciate the little moments with small children scurrying around, but sometimes it takes a poet like Robert Louis Stevenson to put that feeling into words. Stevenson was a Scottish author and prolific world traveler, as explained by the website dedicated to his memory. He crammed many words and adventures into his 44 years, and his life is one worth learning more about — perhaps alongside your mom!

You too, my mother, read my rhymes

For love of unforgotten times,

And you may chance to hear once more

The little feet along the floor.

What woman (or man, for that matter) doesn't love a poem by the legendary Maya Angelou? If you imagine her melodic voice as you read the first two stanzas of her poem "Mother, a Cradle to Hold Me", it's even more moving. If your mom is a Maya Angelou fan as well, you could pick up a copy of Mom & Me & Mom, the story of Angelou's relationship with her mother, which was as complex as many of our own relationships with our mothers are.

It is true

I was created in you.

It is also true

That you were created for me.

I owned your voice.

It was shaped and tuned to soothe me.

Your arms were molded

Into a cradle to hold me, to rock me.

The scent of your body was the air

Perfumed for me to breathe.

Mother,

During those early, dearest days

I did not dream that you had

A large life which included me,

For I had a life

Which was only you.

Does your mother have a flair for the dramatic? How about this poem, "Mother O' Mine", by Rudyard Kipling. The author, who penned The Jungle Book, which we all know and love from the Disney animated version, describes the love he knows his mother has for him, in the most declarative language. Can't you picture him standing on top of a hill, shouting to the rooftops about his mother o'mine?

If I were hanged on the highest hill,

Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

I know whose love would follow me still,

Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

If I were drowned in the deepest sea,

Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

I know whose tears would come down to me,

Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

If I were damned of body and soul,

I know whose prayers would make me whole,

Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

Rupi Kaur isn't only a New York Times best-selling poet, she also illustrates her own books with simple line drawings. If you are on the look-out for a gift to help your kids make their mom, this is a sweet option. Set them up with a few black markers and white paper, and ask them to draw their mom (or a heart, if you have even smaller kids), in the style that Kaur uses. Slip in a printed copy of her poem "Lessons From Mumma" from her second collection of poems, The Sun and Her Flowers.

When it came to listening

My mother taught me silence

If you are drowning their voice with your

Show will you hear them she asked

Shen it came to speaking

She said do it with commitment

Every word you say

Is your own responsibility

When it came to being

She said be tender and tough at once

You need to be vulnerable to live fully

But rough enough to survive it all

When it came to choosing

She asked me to be thankful

For the choices I had that

She never had the privilege of making

All of what I learned about poetry came from my high school English class, but what immediately strikes you when you read "Another Poem for Mothers" by Erin Belieu is the imagery. She perfectly describes the reassuring quality of a mom when she writes of her mother's hands:

Mother, I’m trying

to write

a poem to you—which is how most

poems to mothers must

begin—or, What I’ve wanted

to say, Mother...but we

as children of mothers,

even when mothers ourselves,

cannot bear our poems

to them. Poems to

mothers make us feel

little again. How to describe

that world that mothers spin

and consume and trap

and love us in, that spreads

for years and men and miles?

Those particular hands that could

smooth anything: butter on bread,

cool sheets or weather. It’s

the wonder of them, good or bad,

those mother-hands that pet

One day, when I'm old and crotchety, I hope my children remember me as Irish poet Lola Ridge describes, "less an image in my mind than a luster." Born in Dublin in the late 1800's, Ridge grew up in mining towns in New Zealand and Australia before immigrating to the United States and becoming an activist on the topics of race, class and gender issues. She was an advocate for women’s rights, gay rights, and the rights of immigrants, according to Poets.org, so her poetry would be an awesome gift for a mom who cares about those causes.

Your love was like moonlight

turning harsh things to beauty,

so that little wry souls

reflecting each other obliquely

as in cracked mirrors . . .

beheld in your luminous spirit

their own reflection,

transfigured as in a shining stream,

and loved you for what they are not.

You are less an image in my mind

than a luster

I see you in gleams

pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .

evanescent as the reflection of a white swan

shimmering in broken water.

Most of us know Christina Rossetti's work because she penned The Christmas Carol, but you'll probably enjoy this sonnet dedicated to her mother. Increasingly known as one of the major Victorian poets, Rossetti's words about her first love will surely touch your mother's heart.

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome

Has many sonnets: so here now shall be

One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me

To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,

To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee

I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;

Whose service is my special dignity,

And she my loadstar while I go and come

And so because you love me, and because

I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath

Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:

In you not fourscore years can dim the flame

Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws

Of time and change and mortal life and death.

Check out Romper's new video series, Bearing The Motherload, where disagreeing parents from different sides of an issue sit down with a mediator and talk about how to support (and not judge) each other’s parenting perspectives. New episodes air Mondays on Facebook.