A Farmhouse Easter

Back towards the pine woods, buff hills
Hold the winter, though it wasn't bad,
And though there was scant snow this year
Pond glistens full, recharging from
An earth not stressed for water,
At least not here

And to be sure, daffodils and tiny crocus
Dot the garden, where the ground lies
Disheveled from the creatures
Burrowing all the winter long.

We set the table with old silver
And platters from my mother,
Gone so long I strain to
Remember how she filled
Crystal vases with bright blossoms
Or fretted if the soufflé fell, or
Pursed her lips so not to laugh at my
Brothers' risqué stories.
It seemed then, in memory, that
Easter came with sun and spring,
Scent pungent as the
Loamy earth woke up,
And she was vibrant in those years
Long before she faced the end.

Now this Sunday late afternoon when
I gaze upon the buff hills rolling
Up to meet the dusk grey sky,
The faintest scrim of green seems
To veil my eyes -- in reverie, I cannot say,
Or perhaps it's simply just
The promise of the season,
And we are quiet all together,
Grateful for each other, and the past.

Sunlight long faded, shadows
Deepen in the dining room, we linger,
Feeling ghosts, unsummoned stories,
Some regrets.
I can't say I am unhappy,
I'm just floating on the stream that
Takes us all one day to
Far beyond that scrim,
Where why not say that there
Awaits the golden laughter,
Fragrant flowers, always springing
Easters, and my quixotic mother,
In chorus with a world made right
Because we kept on moving toward
The light beyond our ken.

In my daughter's weathered farmhouse
The kitchen smells of oranges and garlic
A low fire nips the chill and she
Pours a sparkling wine.
We settle in to tussle with the dogs,
And watch the night time gentle down,
Then say goodbye, and leaving then,
Another Easter slips away
Into the waiting blooming.

Yoghurt

Sitting in the sun

Eating vanilla yoghurt and blueberries

Creamy and elegant, liquid velvet,

Reading a letter from a friend. 

The yoghurt makes me think of

Cid's Market in Taos

Everything so fresh

And most home-grown.

Sit with this, I tell myself, 

And I pause 

Waiting for some 

Revelation to arrive.

He knows he's dying, 

She says in the letter,

And she says they are

Back to where they

Were in the 

Beginning

Along the Rio Grande and

The little streams and rivelets

Flowing from the mountains

Along the back dirt roads

To Arroyo Seco, I picture 

Banks and ditches 

Wearing yellow, spritzing

White and 

Purple things emerging

From the winter

We die the way we live,

I'll tell her, 

And,

You didn't choose this learning,

And then I remember our mother

Died this day, seventeen years

Gone now.

But every spring when I start to 

Work again in my garden, 

I find her there, and 

Think of her, 

And how there

Really isn't ever any end,

Just change, new shape,

A different physics in 

A universe where 

Stars realign

In season's heavens,

Full moons in processional

To the Equinox

And what is gone is 

Eternally reborn.

I know there are those who

Die and never give a peace 

To the ones

Who wait and dread

Because there 

Sometimes isn't one, 

They return to clay and dust 

But then arrive again, 

Because they

Will.

In my garden, my mother waits,

Sun dips behind high clouds

For a moment. 

There's no connection

To the yoghurt,

But I decide to tell my friend

All will be well

In time.