(Remembrances from around fifty,
spent a day with her,
she was around eighty)
I found her to be
self-captive,
still waiting for God
to take her in the night,
with shuffled memories
and fading causes.
She was unrevealing
and repeating,
present but only in passing
and very settled in her story.
She had no real inquiry
and a peculiar attention
to her perception.
She was still wanting God to . . .
She had written notes
and directions for her death,
(kept under her pillow at night).
She was chillingly unaffected,
reporting as a soloist,
many opinions as before
but hollow within her now.
Her home residence
stares back at her separateness.
I, as a son,
am a distant third person
never to return.
There is now a wounded child
of her, without disguise.
She is less caution with less clarity.
She is living in the aftereffects
and the physical nuisance pains.
She at times was hardly here
in the same room.
I am rarely addressed
in the present by her.
She had limited conveyance
and little natural nurturance
or warmth to give or reflect,
not cold but dormant
and long gone.
She was somewhat pleasant
as a means but withdrawn.
There were things
still to complete
but nothing formal
or here in her words.
Upon finally leaving
after most of a day with her,
I felt a strong sense
of not seeing her alive again,
and this was so.
She did looked out
from her window then
but did not make eye contact
in parting.
For me,
it was conclusively inconclusive
same as many times for me before.
She is a child of the light
in a lifetime of difficulty
and her private longing
for herself, however insular,
was a remedy.
All mothers have profound impact
on their kids
even if inadvertent
by actions or by ambience.
I shall carry her life,
all of what I know
and feel from her
within me,
forward and forever
in my folds . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment