MOTHER'S DAY POEM

	May 12, 2000
	Poet laureate and NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky has a poem for Mother's Day.

ROBERT PINSKY: The English poet Frances Cornford distills something basic about the idea of motherhood in a short poem so compressed and indelible that it reminds me of William Blake. Cornford makes her meaning plain in eight lines about the idea of mother. Here's her poem, "The New-Born Baby's Song": THE NEW-BORN BABY'S SONG When I was twenty inches long, I could not hear the thrush's song; The radiance of the morning skies Was most displeasing to my eyes. For loving looks, caressing words, I cared no more than sun or birds; But I could bite my mother's breast, And that made up for all the rest. I wish you an affectionate and undistracted Mother's Day.