3 Best Mother’s Day Poems
Mother’s Day has a way of bringing back memories we don’t always expect.
Sometimes it’s a smell from the kitchen. Sometimes it’s an old photograph. And sometimes, it’s a poem we memorized as children and never truly forgot.
Growing up in India, poems were woven quietly into childhood. We recited them in school assemblies, read them from Hindi textbooks, heard them from teachers, and repeated them so often that their rhythm stayed with us long after childhood ended.
At the time, many of these poems felt playful or imaginative. But reading them again as parents feels entirely different. Suddenly, we notice the tenderness in them. The longing. The comfort. The deep, uncomplicated love children carry for their mothers.
This Mother’s Day, I wanted to share three poems that remind me of childhood, home, and motherhood in the gentlest way.
These are poems I now love revisiting with my own children.
Poems about Mothers
1. Ye Kadamb Ka Ped
This poem has lived in the memories of generations of Indian children.
As children, many of us loved its playful imagination and imagery. But beneath its simplicity is something incredibly touching — a child wanting to remain close to his mother while dreaming of adventure and freedom.
That combination feels deeply familiar to childhood itself.
For diaspora families especially, poems like these also become a bridge to language and memory. They connect children not only to Hindi, but also to the emotional world many of us grew up in.
2. Clouds and Waves
Clouds and Waves by Rabindranath Tagore
In this beautiful poem, the child is invited away by the clouds and the waves into magical, imaginary worlds.
But instead of leaving, the child imagines creating those worlds with his mother instead.
There’s something so timeless about that idea.
To young children, mothers are not separate from adventure, imagination, safety, or joy. They are part of all of it.
This poem feels especially lovely to read aloud with younger kids because it opens the door for conversation and imagination.
You can ask children:
- If the clouds invited you somewhere, where would you go?
- What magical game would you create with your family?
- Why do you think the child wanted to stay close to his mother?
3. The Champa Flower
The Champa Flower
This may be one of the softest and most tender poems about the quiet bond between a mother and child.
In the poem, a child imagines becoming a Champa flower hidden high in a tree while secretly watching his mother go about her day.
It beautifully captures the way children orbit their parents, always seeking closeness, even through play and imagination.
Reading it as a parent feels emotional in an entirely different way than it did in childhood.
Poem to Mom – Why I Wanted to Share These Poems
As parents raising children outside India, we often search for ways to pass on culture that feel natural and meaningful.
Sometimes that happens through festivals. Sometimes through food and family stories. And sometimes, through poems, quietly carried across generations.
Poetry has a beautiful way of preserving emotion, rhythm, language, and memory all at once.
And perhaps that is why these poems continue to stay with so many of us.
I hope these poems bring a little nostalgia, warmth, and connection into your home this Mother’s Day.
If there’s a poem from your childhood that you still remember today, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Happy Mother’s Day.
