Sunday Morning — Eight Days Before Christmas, 2001

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On death, I have thoughts 
That bread and water 
Can not satisfy: 
Because they are gone 
Jack, John, Eugene, and Ruth. . . 

And soon my mother too 
Will rest her gnarled body 
Beneath the tree beside my father 
And I will not see her again, 
Nor try longer to break through 

Her clouded mind and memory 
To ask her how to clip roses 
Or plant peas in the spring. 
Gone the meals of corn, and yellow 
Crook-necked squash 

Creamed peas and new potatoes 
Sliced tomatoes and peaches 
From the vines and trees 
Behind the home, now sold 
Where she walked familiar and gathered in. 

And dresses sewn and pressed 
To make her daughters beautiful. 
Hung memory-ready in her closets: 
Wedding dresses and coats 
Wool jackets and organdy skirts. 

And all those lives she loved 
And cared for:
Healing like few women can 
The care-worn and unfortunate 
Whose relief her society gave. 

Grandma Sue and Dad 
Both died encompassed by her 
Ceaseless care; and now she 
Can no longer walk or drive 
The old Buick she won selling health. 

I would hear her voice—long after 
This morning’s breakfast and tomorrow’s lunch
Singing songs gathered in her voice 
Forever tumbling from her eighty-seven years.
I would have her young, and here/hear, and never gone. 

So speak to me of blood-red redemption 
Male-ready and heavy talk. 
I would have it simpler—the trimming of the tree
The oven-baked bread and fruit-room jam 
And her, our mother, and him, our father: again.