If You Write It, They Will Pile Up - Poetry Vol II

Memories of Mom

Did you really step over the line?

Are you really still with us in time?

Is it just we can't see you, or hear you, or touch,

Is it just we're unable to tell you how much

Things are harder, although we are trying to see

How the past can be present, the future can be

Still attached to the way that you sought;

Never knowing that those things you thought

Could be sabotaged, stolen, or mocked till you cried

And how you, giving up, could have left them and died;

So we try to revive them, and you, in our lives

Till there's some understanding, and balance arrives.

And there's unification of bad and of good

And we finally can hear you say, just as you would:

(Leaving laundry and vacuuming, dust pan and mop)

"Very nice. Please excuse me. I just have to flop."

- January 22, 1997