Johndavisnearby
I came upon her yesterday
Her hair a silver ‘kerchief in the wind
Her lips less than a smile
Her face a light with wrinkled shadows
Her knees two small folds beneath her gown
her feet small slabs upon the steps-
Her gaze as sharp as ice in sunlit trees,
Her hand upon her breast-one almost within…
As if to shield the stricken twins,
That locked the death-bringer within her chest!
Yet she shared as brave
the calm of lingering days
when beauty emboldens the hours of spring.
Then morning shifted sudden to cornered light…
and bewildering shadows of nearing night…
Shocking came the shrill birds and blowing birds
and shoots that shook their young sharp heads
Green against a heart red with pain!
And the cutting sky- that drowned in blue
the colors that cowered from all we knew
frowning now with awful brow!
My mother found she had breast cancer on a gray
and cold November Day
She lingered 20 years more
and we loved her
all the way
past heaven’s sad door
No greater saint lived
than love for her children she Bore
Added to Mother and Metamorphosis
written in 1955
When I was 18