Mothers’ Day

 

When I was in high school, I was very active in the Order DeMolay, a boys’ service fraternity sponsored by the Masons.  Like the AF&AM, most of their ceremonies were secret; the one exception was the “Flower Talk,” a ceremony dedicated to filial devotion and a mother’s love.

I performed the Flower Talk on numerous occasions, and it melted feminine hearts from 15 to 85.  I wish I could say I still remember it verbatim, but after 50 years,I don’t; I was able to find it posted on a DeMolay website. 

My favorite portion of the talk was a poem, author anonymous, that went:

”My body fed your body, son,

But birth’s a swift thing,

Compared to one and twenty years

Of feeding you with spirit’s tears.

I could not make your mind and soul,

But my glad hands have kept you whole.

Your groping hands bound me to life with ruthless bands.

And all my living became a prayer,

While all my days built up a stair

For your young feet that trod behind,

That you an aspiring way should find.

Think you that life can give you pain

Which does not stab in me again?

Think you that life can give you shame

Which does not make my pride go lame?

And you can do no evil thing

Which sears not me with poisoned sting.

Because of all that I have done,

Remember me in life, O son.

Keep that proud body fine and fair,

My life is monumented there.

For my life make no woman weep,

For my life hold no woman cheap,

And see you give no woman scorn

For that dark night when you were born.”

 

It was called the Flower Talk because of the roses scattered on the altar.  At the end of the ceremony, the initiates were instructed to take a flower for their mothers – a red rose if she was living or a white one if she was gone.  I took a red one back then.