Poem to My Birthmother

Stacee wrote this poem to her birth mother when she was 11 years old and won an award at school.

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This poem is about my birth mother (I have never met her, and I know nothing about her!)

My Mother

I’ll never see her smiling face or hear her tender song.

When I first came to the U.S.A. her sadness followed me along,
She lives in the deepest corner of my heart – the one that’s a mystery to me,
The corner that’s stronger than all of my emotions, a corner as strong as a tree,
When I close my eyes tight and think of her, all I see are flashes of green,
But as hard as I try and as hard as I hope I cannot figure out what they mean.
Stacee Ballback has been Adoption Voices Magazine’s Art Director for the last five months.  Stacee has always had a wonderful artistic eye, and is herself a talented photographer.  I have enjoyed having my daughter work with me on this labor of love.  Stacee just graduated from UC Santa Cruz, and has decided to travel to Spain to teach English this September, so she is taking a leave of absence from the magazine. 

We will miss her and wish her much success with her new endeavors!

– Jane Ballback

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