My Mother’s Sky
(Eileen (Lee Porter) Grayhurst 1930-2024)
The Death Journey
Space around the memories,
walking the cul-de-sac,
house to house, in a dream
where the small school stood and the field
is just the same where you linked arms
with your teacher and talked,
bright with your awakening into literature.
The trees are stronger, thicker-trunked,
living non-violent as they expand
and take up more ground.
Space from room to room and five hawks
fill the sky, then merge with the sky over the lake
and the vast line of clouds, changing temperature.
She drives her last car drive,
into this emptiness that does not hurt
but offers no comfort.
After the drive
the love in her blazes refreshed
as she sits in her lazy boy chair,
forgetting her sickness and old age,
blazes the whole scope of her magnificence,
strongest in her compassion.
This last journey we will have together.
We will overcome together until the end
and even then
there will be no ending, just a change,
space, I cannot fathom,
space added between us, space experienced
sometimes as a shedding of plumage,
sometimes, as a wasps’ nest touched,
accidental unbearable sting.
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Copyright © 2024 by Allison Grayhurst
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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Read whole poem:
https://allisongrayhurst.com/my-mothers-sky/
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