I wasn't really sure if she was alive, or dead, or dying - but it felt like I needed to wait it out and she would come back to me
suddenly she did - as though the electricity was running again through her body and mind
my writing is sort of like that
I am trapped under it and then suddenly it is time to listen, and move, and see words forming on the page.
so I offer more poems while the electricity is running
bones
my mother
was getting hard
the softness of her body disappearing
bone so hard, obviously pronounced
the beauty of bones
long elegant leg bones, arm bones
rib and cheek bones
all pronounced
no longer blurred by flesh
drawn back tight over all those bones
cheeks hollowed out "my lost Mayan Incan mother" I thought
the gaunt beauty of bones
she is connecting
with everyone
who has come before
and all unborn creatures
and she is leaving me here
she is leaving me here
she is leaving
close
she is holding towels
stacked
onto open palms
and arms
the request
"when Bernice and dad come
I have to be ready
will you help me pack?"
a sister and a father
coming from the other side
"close" she was saying
"but we have time to prepare"
details
walking pathways thru the woods next to
the coast of the bay
step by step we
go
slowly
my mother's painful pace
she stops
amazed
examining plants, stones
"are we going to slowly?"
"no" this is my chance
to look
at this part of the world
in detail
always
mindful
of my mother's pain
and her constant
transcendence
of the same
dreaming again
dreaming again
they are still alive but I am certain we
buried them both
funerals, I'm sure
how long will I have to look after them?
so much care
these people are needing
dreaming again
my mother and I are tending
the vegetables growing
up through the slats in the floor from
the ground underneath
we are in the house that is not a house
trees and sky all around
but walls and a roof
how so?
I don't understand
he shouldn't have left me
"he shouldn't have left me"
"he didn't want to leave
he loved you
it's not his fault that he died"
"I know"
she is looking at her husband's photo on the wall
helpful
a tiny scrap of newsprint she is holding
retrieved from the jewelry box
"you might find this helpful" she says
"when?" I asked
"when I am dead" she says
it was the poem "do not stand by my grave and weep"
months later
she says
"I'm nothing"
"no" I say and retrieve the poem
from the box and read:
"Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die."
"see? you are everything"
"I know" she says
"but it's so hard to remember"
soon after
we are all crying while
my sister in law reads
the poem at the funeral
in the moment
"see the house?"
"where?"
she is pointing to the stones in the walkway
we are having lunch in the sunshine
she gets up, starts to show me
then
"i'll loose it"
she sits down and directs my steps
a little this way
a little that way
focusing on the image
until my foot is there
where she sees the image of a house
the world crystallizes
I am there
my mother is there
in the sunshine
grey stones under my feet
the soil under the stones
grass all around
and sun
shining
down from the sky
all that is
all that was
all that ever would be
