Mother’s Day is a time set aside to honor the incredible women who brought us into the world and shaped our lives. Finding the perfect poem for mothers day can feel like a monumental task – how do you capture a lifetime of love, sacrifice, and guidance in just a few stanzas? While cards and gifts are traditional, a truly moving poem can resonate deeply, offering a unique way to express gratitude.
Sometimes, the most profound expressions come from unexpected places. For many, poetry might seem daunting, but certain poems have a way of cutting through complexity and speaking directly to the heart. One such poem, “The Lanyard” by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, is renowned for its surprising emotional punch, often leaving readers laughing through tears.
Film director and composer J.J. Abrams, selecting it for an anthology, noted how this poem uniquely gripped him, proving relatable and profound in a way poetry hadn’t before. It’s a testament to Collins’s ability to tap into universal human experiences, particularly the complex, often humorous, and deeply loving bond between a mother and child.
The poem begins with a seemingly mundane moment, an adult speaker idly coming across the word “lanyard” in the dictionary:
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.This simple discovery triggers a vivid, Proustian memory – not of a cookie, but of a specific childhood moment at summer camp:
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.The speaker then muses, with understated humor, on the inherent uselessness of this handcrafted item:
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.This sets up the central, poignant comparison that gives the poem its emotional weight and makes it a perfect, if unconventional, choice for those seeking a poem for mothers day. Collins masterfully contrasts the triviality of the child’s gift with the immeasurable gifts bestowed by the mother:
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.The poem’s power lies in this stark, yet gentle, juxtaposition. The mother’s gifts are elemental: life itself, nourishment, healing, teaching, the very physical being of the child. The child’s gift is a simple, somewhat poorly made, and ultimately “useless, worthless thing.” The humor stems from the child’s innocent, misguided belief that these could ever balance the scales.
Yet, the poem isn’t cynical. It’s a “rueful admission,” a recognition from the adult perspective of the vast, unbridgeable gap between a mother’s unconditional giving and a child’s limited capacity to reciprocate. It captures a universal truth: you can never truly repay your mother. The sentiment is not one of failure, but of acknowledging the sheer magnitude of the gift received.
Mother and Child painting by Rodney Burn ca. 1962
Analyzing the Layers in “The Lanyard”
Collins uses simple language and a conversational tone, making the profound message highly accessible. The repetition of the contrast – “She gave me life… and I gave her a lanyard” – emphasizes the point without becoming heavy-handed. The image of the lanyard itself, a tangible but impractical object created with earnest effort, becomes a powerful symbol of the child’s nascent, inadequate attempts at expressing love and gratitude in the face of overwhelming generosity.
For someone seeking a poem for mothers day, “The Lanyard” offers a refreshing alternative to more overtly sentimental verses. It speaks to the deep, often inarticulable feeling of debt and immense love children feel towards their mothers. It acknowledges the small, sometimes clumsy ways we try to show our appreciation throughout our lives, knowing they can never truly match the scale of what we’ve been given. It reminds us that the value isn’t in the gift itself, but in the loving intention, however inadequate it may seem in retrospect. The poem captures the essence of that irreplaceable bond, the vastness of a mother’s love, and the lifelong journey of a child attempting to understand and honor it. Exploring diverse poetry themes helps us appreciate the many facets of human experience captured in verse.
On this Mother’s Day, perhaps sharing “The Lanyard” can spark a conversation about those early, earnest gifts and the lifelong journey of trying to articulate a love that, like a mother’s, feels boundless and impossible to fully repay. It’s a poem that resonates because it’s deeply true, funny, and profoundly moving all at once. Finding the right words can be difficult, but sometimes a simple, honest poem about a lanyard can say it all.