My mother would be eighty today
if she lived - eighty -
those two round O’s stacked
with another by their side.
I miss her with the whole round
ache of three whole O’s of pain,
miss her smile, sweetness, delicacy,
support.
There are three O’s in my heart
right now
holding up cards
saying Oh, Oh, Oh,
It is so hard to lose mother.
Tears flow.
Does the pain of losing mother
ever stop?
It is the natural flow; life begets
and death begets,
and yet knowing that doesn’t stop
the silver hammer pounding my heart
saying where is she in whom I lived
for nine months
connected by a cord
in breath and digestion,
rhythm, pulse and sound.
.
When are we ever so obviously held
again?
She left me clues of afterlife
with a glass broken egg,
a honked horn,
let me know she was hatched
into a wider bloom,
and yet I ache.
I want to take her to the Lark Creek Inn
for lunch to celebrate.
She will have the pot roast with potatoes
and carrots. I will have the fish.
On the Mountain
When I sit on the rocks
beneath the prayer flags
hanging from the barbed wire
of the fire lookout,
I am surrounded by Swallowtail
butterflies and birds.
I look down on a world
that seems gentle and sweet.
I see only love in the curve of the bay,
water and land based in the movement of tiny ships.
The top of
Parts connect that are unconnected,
Organs know blood
in the pulse,
of a four-chambered heart.