Mother

Passages of my childhood arise within my mother’s death gaze,  
bringing reminiscences of olden days.  
   
When in sadness in childhood we would speak in silent gaze.  
No mother left to envision me now, now within those quiet eyes.  
   
Mother, you have gone away;  
oh, dear mother let the memories rest beneath your eyelids.  
   
But never close your eyes!  
The imageries still dance in them as if you’re still alive!    
   
 While vibrancy in your quiet eyes remains, I'll save  
this voiceless reflection I saw from a mother's hushed eyes.  
   
Mere images from when I was a child,  
and often when I'll be sorrow-hearted, these reflections will then give me joy;  
   
so, while life does remain in cycle, the memories she has protected;  
those reflections I saw from a mother's hushed eyes.    
   
Oh, I remember the life of my mother's glossy eyes,  
my reception of joy to her when I returned home,  
   
always gently did her eyelids come to a rest  
as she used to sit and wait for me to speak,  
   
but now are not closed, and silent;  
though they have left me for the cold of death,  
   
but while mute voices do persist, in those images I'll remember  
this vivid reflection I saw from a mother's hushed eyes.

I wondered what it must be like        
To cry when you have a glass eye.
 It was only a passing thought,
You know, the way you do.        
       
She suffered a mild stroke last year,        
They said Mom had just stopped talking.
At first she tried to tell us that
She hadn't had a stroke,        
       
She couldn't relate how it caused
Her glass eye to loosen in its socket.
But when I'd gone to visit her
In hospital, I saw, and then I knew
What had happened;  I took it all in
As she blithely sat up in bed eating.        
       
It was months before she said it        
And she said it yesterday        
While we dined on Cantonese.
 
Driving the freeway I'd missed the turnoff.
It's then while she sat next to me Mom said
"You know, sweet pea, since the stroke,        
It takes longer to get my mental map up".        
       
Though the stroke left its ravaged effects        
More evident with each passing month,
Mom looked quite lovely when I came
To take her to pick up the prosthetic.        
         
She emerged, beaming, with a new glass eye
That matched her light hazel one perfectly.
I tried not to be obvious
As I watched her delighted reaction,
Laughing in a way I'd never heard;
The girl of Mom's own youth long gone.        
       
At the restaurant after dinner        
Our talk turned to a quiet poignancy.
I shared with her my own struggles,
And she, her thoughts on mortality.
 
She'd forget, mostly recent things        
Like when she last made peanut brittle
Or was I at the barbecue
(Of course I was, I brought the coleslaw).
 
Her memories way back from childhood
Were indelible, where we all come from.
I noticed the more Mom talked,
The further back her sentiments.
 
We joked, she brightened, grinning wide,        
Eyes dancing from that ravaged face
That turned into my grandmother's,
And I told her so!
 
She always looked like herself,
But yesterday, sitting across from me
In the booth by the street window
With the light from late afternoon.
 
I saw her as a moving portrait,
Small & frail.  But her smile, and that laugh.
Then Mom spoke of her mother's last days,
Lifting her chin, trying not to cry.        
       
That's what made me wonder        
What it must be like.        
       
     
     
 
Poet's note:  My mother was blinded in one eye during childhood and had finally received a prosthetic in her senior years.    
     

sometimes  
a mere unhurried sigh  
      no righteous indignation        
she’s a mystery  
whose tears are not  
her children’s entertainment  
or their dad’s entitlement  
for far beneath  
her armour  
of polished incisors  
and slightly tinted lips  
ruddied by apronsongs  
the more to whisper kindness  
to ears that come for comfort  
      where words can scarce find footing        
they trickle only in the dead of night  
cutting across the quiet mischief  
of thorns that pierce her heart  
in unsuspecting daylight hours  
to settle at nerve’s end  
old worn-out lyrics  
      for fresh new        
      apronsongs        
 
© Copyright 2012 June 19  
by Clyve A. Bowen♫