To Thank Her (no matter who hears)

    
   
There are not enough ways to    
thank her, as my sisters and I    
lost our mother,    
though it is not she who is lost.    
   
It has been ten days ago    
as of this morning, very early,    
just as the rain    
showed its cold monotone.    
   
It comes, grieving, freeing me    
to rise up,    
to celebrate our mother.    
   
To shower the firmament    
ev’rywhere she saw & walk’d;    
I now can say    
no matter who might hear:    
   
Bless my soul, Mother,    
have you taken a moment to    
gaze upon yourself    
   
in your new raiments of    
restoration, in preparation    
for the journey    
that has awaited you?    
   
How does it feel at last    
to shuck off heavy burdens,    
layer upon layer?    
   
The pall of dementia    
coveting o’er, like barnacles,    
of everything    
you were about & loved for.    
   
You were being trapped    
in a mollusk husk; you’d say:    
”If I ever get that way,    
just shoot me!”    
   
She was a nurse  
with a particular calling in  
the hospital nurse’ries.  
   
Mom was a blessing to  
babies she helped bring into  
the world, and loved the  
babies she herself had had.  
   
Mother, I thank you, for,  
despite your many busy rolls,  
all of them were never easy.  
   
You put your growing family’s  
welfare above all else.  
As a mom, you were a queen.  
   
We are the jewels in our  
mother’s crown;  
named after precious stones.  
   
Always referring to us,  
to anyone she’d meet, as  
“My three girls”;  
creating us, one at a time.  
   
Looking down upon each,  
swaddled in the  
warmth of her life-giving flesh,  
   
our fresh faces, cleaned of  
filmy birth, of each feature,  
fold and quivering curve.  
   
She smiled at each  
uniqueness of her feat, and  
deemed,  
by the tug for her milk,  
   
first one then another,  
till Lord, if she wasn’t  
well pleased!