In my limited experience, mothering and worrying go hand in hand. Here's a mother's worry poem by Richard Jarrette, from his fine book, A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances. He lives in California. 




My Mother Worries About My Hat 
 

Every spring my mother says I should buy a straw

hat so I won't overheat in summer.

I always agree but the valley's soon cold, and besides

my old Borsalino is nearly rain-proof.

She's at it again, it's August, the grapes are sugaring.

I say, Okay, and pluck a little spider from her hair -

hair so fine it can't hold even one of her grandmother's

tortoise shell combs.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2015 by Richard Jarrette, 'My Mother Worries About My Hat,' from A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances, (Green Writers Press, 2015). Introduction copyright 2015 by the Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-06.