The Portrait in my Heart

The portrait that I hold most dear of all,
I hide away where other cannot see.
I cherish it down deep within my heart,
Engraved upon my page of memory.
The portrait is my mother, years ago:
The patient, gentle face, the low-bent head,
Humming a tune, the while her fingers flew
That we, her children, might be clothed and fed.
All other memories around her revolve;
The countless mass of lesser things -
The smooth white drifts of winter's snows,
The summer sun, the green of springs,
The birds the flowers, the dusty lanes,
The autumn woods we love to roam -
Are but the setting, but the frame
For her. She made our house a home.

~ Ida Driskell Baird