Greetings from me after a six month break here I read still read here occasionally. After losing a dear sister to suicide this time last year my 84 year old mum worsened in health and died on Xmas day with family around I include my last sketch and poem of her My own health remains relatively stable. The fatigue seems worse, but when does it not?, Other life in general challenges seem insurmountable as a whole nowadays, but every day brings new wonder Cheers
Mum
Here is the one who created the original images in us all:
Images of safety and garden,
The long, loving gaze.
Persistent, serene,
Embedded in every bone -
When the blessing of her moment arrives
There is nothing but the familiar comfort and repose.
As familiar as the heart that beats
With the heart that beats
Within you
In the quiet neighbourhood -
The occasional bird singing within the secret green
Out there.
Familiar as the forever mother sound
Of her calling you to some joyful task she could never have forgotten you for.
Familiar as the book she silent-mind approves,
And the talk along the petal strewn way
Of ancient paths that spring afresh toward her intelligent present -
As magically and naturally as her smile from within.
Her image would so quickly infect and grasp the child beside the bed
Held in hand.
So quickly the moment of her face and kind regard
Would beat the wings of a new friend’s mind,
Or steady and cool a man’s aching confusion and toil.
To her offspring girls she always belonged,
Giving moment upon moment the renewal of love;
She the central earth of their unworldly bevvy,
Dishing instruction,wishing fulfillment.
Her tears their defining moments,
Her laughter their final say.
Here is the one whose own image is as graven to our hearts
As any type of moon shard shadow is to any type of stone.
That last night...
You couldn’t snap a twig but it was silent reaching for her.
And there was no difference between her image and the full-knowing moon
Over that free, saturated landscape of home.
Travelling and discovering now as earth travels and discovers:
Love; simply no longer bound.
Where flies the blue spirit bird now?
Into some great hold of ‘mother’
That breaches every law and cosmic edge,
Circling infinity, seeking each child for more...
More beginning, more ending?
Ah, we see you by the shores!