A Moment

[Leanne]

This doesn't sound like a teenage daughter at all to me -- it sounds like two adults meeting as equals, or as near to equal as you ever get with your mother. I feel the daughter should be with her own children but instead she sits aloof (at least, she is watching and waiting, and I feel it is for her children). To me, her mother is saying "yeah right, you say you don't want to repeat my mistakes but here you are neglecting your kids just like you say I did." Alternatively, she has run to her mother because of difficulties in her life that her mother also experienced, but she lacks the will or strength to remove herself from the situation. Now perhaps she knows why it was so hard for her mother, but she still believes she is somehow better, and will until she fails just as utterly. At some point her mother probably warned her, but she knew better.

The heron is a beautiful symbol. White, or light in colour usually, it is lord of the wetlands and of the sky. It is graceful, carefree, elegant and able to escape as soon as danger threatens or the moment it is tired of its place. No wonder it is the object of envy.

This is not a child's tantrum, but the dissolution of a life. It is a strong poem, thanks lizzie.