My Mother
Every day I pass the spot
Where the picture of her hangs.
Frozen in the frame,
Her smile is bright and does not change.
Her skin untroubled, smooth and young,
No gray is in her hair,
And over time I see her less,
Forgetting she’s not here.
Sometimes I turn, pick up the phone
When I'm preoccupied;
I need to get in touch with her,
Perhaps for some advice.
Forgetting for a moment then
That she’s been dead five years,
My sense of time is scrambled,
My place in it unclear.
But didn’t I just talk with her?
Wasn’t that just yesterday?
I don’t know where the moments go
But sense them slide away.
I hadn’t had the feeling that
Her death had left me grieving
For after all, I saw her face
Each morning, every evening.
But visiting my son I saw
With old, remembered pain,
A different picture of her there,
And felt her death again.
And for a second, just a flash,
I wondered at that face,
The picture carried in my head
Was suddenly replaced
With yet another smile, a gaze,
I heard her speak to me,
No longer frozen in one age,
But fluid memory.
~ PHL
1920 - 1999
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