We editors may pay too much attention to syntax, but we certainly are in favour of kissing, fully. It is such a pleasant thing to do. And it is how motherhood usually begins.

Kissing is much more than pleasant. It is a most basic and powerful breaking down of the boundaries we each maintain, boundaries that only humans seem to have and which separate us from all other animals. So much of our society is designed to keep inter-personal boundaries safe and intact, even to promote boundaries and all the rigidity they can bring. Our sense of self is what our boundaries protect.

Our sense of self is our template for living. We use our sense of self to sort out and then put together our experiences. It is us, in our purest form. And kissing intrudes, pushes in upon this sense of self, throws all these social and psychic boundaries out the door -- and spreads our oh-so-important sense of self like butter. The warm butter of a lingering kiss.

Although kissing is an end in itself, it is also the start of things, besides motherhood. It is the start of the chain reaction which brings more love into the world. We celebrate mothers for this; they are conduits.

They bring love into the world. They bring it in by giving birth - anyone present during a birth will never forget the deluge of love unleashed in the room, a real flood -- and then mothers nurture each deluge, each birth, for the rest of their lives.

Births do mean over-population, which is a big problem. But over-love isn't a problem. We are not loved out, not drowning in love, despite all the births day after day - despite all the mothers contributing big time to our world's sanity and continuity.

We face a shortage of love; we grind it up and spit it out with our wars and various insanities towards each other, and so need a constant re-supply. Mothers should be recognized for this contribution, every day. We should bow to mothers, a little Japanese bow, each day.

Better yet, we should bring more mother-friendly practices to the workplace and in schooling, in the health system, in the banks and in government policy, especially taxes, and in social services. We'll have to elect more women for that; we should be determined to elect mothers, real mothers. That's a Mothers' Day Resolution.

EE Cummings concludes his poem about syntax . . .

"then laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
and death I think is no parenthesis"