Mother Poem

A poem I wrote a few weeks ago that I'll share here today, Memorial Day in the States, for Mom.

It's been almost 28 years since cancer took her, but Mother, you are in my thoughts almost evey day still.


Discompose


In the middle of their season,
filled with nourishing fruit,
some half eaten, dissembled,
a natural disaster discovered.
Tender blossoms, hovered over,

protected each day, look up,
once her precious seeds;
their buds have eyes that rain
as cancer has stripped her
a bark-less log, withered.

The plummet of coverings,
gravity is a greedy force.
Beneath the tender layers
like a plague, disease takes
until the instant winds,

woodchopper fierce, remove balance,
and pull her down, horizontal earth.
The birds and the beetles
gather in a feast chorus
of chew, peel, and carry music,

a song of disappearance
yet that that has been
left behind, little leaves,
tiny twigs with her marrow,
if only in one's mind

can nurture some strength.
The young will grow up
eventually, rise high enough
to shade the soil from the sun;
the place her roots still lay.