Girl Becomes a Woman - a Sestina

What makes me, a girl, into a woman?
Is it because I clean the house and cook,
And for beauty's sake grow flowers in my garden?
Does it happen when I become a wife
To a man I cannot help but love?
Or not until he then makes me a mother?

I was but a girl living with my mother,
Dreaming of the day when I would be a woman.
Knowing only story book love;
Wanting just to eat but not to cook.
Leaving her to be my father's wife,
While I sat, dreaming, in the garden.

Then my Prince came one day in to my garden;
Asked to take me from the home of my mother.
With solemn kiss and diamond ring, made me his wife.
I, the blushing bride, not yet a woman,
Learning how to clean and how to cook;
Learning most of all my own true love.

I welcomed my true love
Into my secret garden;
While delicious aromas fill the kitchen where I cook,
Delightful babies grow, filling their mother.
Girl turned bride grows up a happy woman,
Glowing with contentment of a happy wife.

My husband cherishes me, his wife,
And my trust grows together with his love.
Somewhere along the way I become a woman
Cultivated by my husband, his own garden
Bearing fruit, children I will mother,
Offspring nourished by the healthy food I cook.

So I clean and nurture, and I cook;
Bring my husband the blessings of a wife;
Raise my children in the nurture of a mother.
Surrounded by it, I produce more love
Growing rampant in my lovely garden.
Like the passion flower, I became a woman.

Feminine arts cook up a feast of love,
Inviting my husband into his wife's garden.
Producing children, I'm a mother - I am a woman.