I Sing for a Mother's Heart

Out of the womb a tether beyond DNA
Forged by love and sinewed with transference of unrealized hopes, dreams, and desires.
Up from the heartbeat that once fed my own, echoes
of your gestures, my stubbornness, your perfect gravy, our nebulous fears.

I sing of the bond that urgently beckoned,
Suspended above the clouds, through mountains and reservoirs
to the place I never lived but would always call home
I returned to celebrate the memories.

I sing of the tree, annually bedecked with lights and tinsel
grazing the ceiling  (to my father’s dismay).
This year barren and secluded in a room seldom used
an unacknowledged testament to the magnitude of her pain.

I sing of the gifts, papered and ribboned, spilling from under the tree.
This year clad in plastic grocery bags,
opened, admired and placed askew on the mantel.
The burden of her debility veiled in cataract-clouded eyes.

I sing of her bravery, as she rested on the couch still pushing the vacuum,
proud of the home she so skillfully decorated
and the dignity that would not allow her to ask for help,
yet gratefully accept it when offered.

I sing of a husband’s love born of sixty year’s marriage
that fit socks onto her feet each morning
tended to her pedicures, massaged her limbs
and bought her special treats just to see her smile.

I sing of a daughter’s love that was gentle when it should have been compelling,
and the veil that clouded her own vision
to the progression of her mother’s disease.

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