Tag Archives: caregiving

I answer the phone..

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I answer the phone and
their memories spill out of the ether.

Its not enough to grieve but to remember together
what she was like or
what he said or
how forgiveness is as hard as the long dark night.

It has all changed us at a molecular level,
all those things we did,
things required
and unrequited.
How did we know to place our hands to that work,
how did we summon the courage to lift
and carry that burden-
the weight was great but not unwelcomed.
We rose each morning and put our hearts to the test-
until, weeping with the stars,
we lay just for a moment before we were called
again and again and again.

Love sustains and
Will exceeds what we know
and that which we cannot comprehend.
Those things that we were called to do
changed our DNA
until suffering is no longer feared
and death seems somehow diminished
in the light of an autumn afternoon.

I will not say

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wild roses

I will not say,
This is Tuesday, the day she left,
Two weeks ago.
I will not look at the clock and say,
She breathed her last at 10 til 9,
Two weeks ago.
No.
I will not say that.

I will not say
It was easy
Or hard
Or I was blessed
Or I sacrificed.
I will not say that.

I will not say
There were days I could have been kinder
Or sometimes the frustration chafed
And she knew.
I will not say that I would do it all over again.
No.

It was a choice
Made without enough information or
maybe not well thought out.
Seemingly,
This is how I have lived my life-
Making decisions
And just doing it.

Its just what we did,
Together,
Each day,
Each conversation, smile and gesture-
Its just what we did.

That I will say.
And remember.

Easy in the Going

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She waits
for the word to come down
her train is leaving soon –
ticket purchased
and held tightly
in her beautiful hands.

(parchment pale hands,
thin and strong,
that once held such powerful music.
And in all the keys,
she played our lives
so that we were formed
by the sound of her heart)

She waits for the bells to toll
and for the band to start –
she is easy in the going
and longing
for the gentle rocking of the rails.

… My mother caught her train yesterday morning and arrived in heaven as the angel band played a loving welcome. She was easy in the going and for that we are eternally grateful.

bare feet on asphalt

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This leave taking of life
Is not easy as it sounds.
Its not like the soul
Flits from the chest
Like some kinda airy fairy.

It more like extricating yourself
From a tangle of baling wire
And knotted hemp rope,
All scratchy and coiled,
And maybe wrapped by duct tape,
Several times around.

I remember, as a little girl, running across hot asphalt,
Soles of my bare feet summer hardened,
But the tar that oozed up from the cracks of the road
Attached itself and
I was always a little afraid that I would become
Stuck, unable to move.

Thats maybe the closest thing I can imagine-
Stuck to life,
Slowly pulling away,
Only to leave tracks of bare feet
Behind.

lovely in her diminishment

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Crescent Moon and Venus 8-2012

Waning crescent moon,
dark hued
and lovely in her diminishment,
cradles in upturned arms
the shadow of her fullness.
The dark roundness
heavy against the setting bow,
fills the void
of what once was abundance
and will be again.
Her ebbing light,
soon to darkness and rest
in a starry landscape,
until her rebirth,
the silver sliver loveliness of the
waxing crescent moon.

*** This poem was written several years ago. Now taking on a different meaning for me.

Our Lenten Season

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Early Spring Morning

Our Lenten season continues.
Daily rituals of sacrifice and penance are observed
as we struggle with the mysteries of life.

This life filled with –
well, with those things life is filled with –
things that we love and suffer-
faces of loved ones, song, sun and moon,
food and warmth, the aching of need
and want.
We hold fast to breath
and heartbeat, far past the time our legs
and body have become undone.

I repent of all the sins I have committed
against her.
Just as each child is guilty and must be forgiven,
I also forgive her
for all those common sins that mothers commit
against their children
out of habit
or frustration
or love.

We both repent
and with ashes marked on our foreheads
continue on with her morning ablutions
and daily baptism of water
and life.

He insists on barking…

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Feb morning

He insists on barking at the angels-
Their feathers rustling as they perch along the walls of the hall and her room-
Watching as the communion of saints beat a path to her door.
He is alert to the folding of wings as they settle
Unhurried
As death.

She told me that this life
Is hard to let go of.
Knowledge deep now,
As the blood and bone she created in me.
The body,
The heart
Wants to continue beating, breathing-
Though the spirit is chomping at the bit
To go home.

So they come and visit-
Those who have returned to hold her hand along the way.
I almost feel that I should be the good hostess
As these venerable women were,
And bake a pound cake,
Offer sweet tea and lemonade.

They pass the time, laughing,
Talking of hunting trips
And rabbits loose in the yard.
Friends and relations gathered for her coronation,
As the small dog barks
At the heavenly host.

A change in status

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January morning 2014

At this moment,
I have been alive
sixty years,
seven months,
twenty-six days,
twelve hours
and twenty minutes.

In all that time, I have never been a motherless child.
That status will soon change.

A new poetry journal arrived in the mail yesterday
and the first poems I read
were by poets grieving
for mothers who had died.
I felt the universe open a little wider.

We are dancing the dance
of the in-between-
light and shadow,
this room
and the place of angels.

Why is it that on first writing, I write
Angles
and not
Angels.

Restless,
my spirit moves from room to room
as I sit next to her bed
in stillness.

The dying regard the standard conventions of etiquette
of not much use when going about the business
of dying.
The lessons she teaches
to the very end,
always my mother.

It is Nothing Really

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hill & hollow

Trying to wrest my mood from the dark side,
I cling to the path
well-worn from years of mindless wandering.
That same heaviness plagues my heart,
rending my chest in two.

It is nothing really.

Just the dance on the edge of that cliff-
the one at times I find myself
teetering and scrabbling,
struggling to find firmer ground.

It is nothing really.

Though at this moment
it seems more like quicksand
or a rabbit hole
or a trap door
or something.

But it is nothing,
really.