My maternal grandmother – my Beloved Mama – passed away in May 2016. I wrote these words by her bedside, during her last few days. She was the eternal optimist, her joy and laughter were infectious (even when nobody knew what she was laughing at), and she epitomised unconditional love – endowing everyone around her with the truth that they really mattered… She was the ultimate free-spirit, and now is freer still.
/
Shimmering there,
hanging
like The Veil,
the sky,
translucent
like your skin,
the glow
you always
carried– which
carried you–
will carry you on.
/
The day I plucked your last flowers, and recalled
the way you would point to each little bloom–
chrysanthemum, hydrangea,
the ones you called the black-eyed Susans
and the lone poppy, deep orange
(bursting in the Spring cosmos of violets and daisies)
that delighted you to raptures
from our stance on the cement path,
and between us and the poppy were galaxies,
and just as astounding to behold in the cool
suburban atmosphere, after the rain–
I thought of your little ritual: bringing camellias
in the Winter, and the shivering grasses that rattled
in the Summer, arraying them anywhere you could find
a home, and how that was just the way you were, too –
blooming year-round, bursting in vibrancy,
always finding a home wherever you were.
/
And when,
in your glow,
you are carried
away
back to
the stars
where you
belong
with all
the blooms
behind
the veil–
and galaxies
between us–
I will reach out
and pluck
the sky.
[ cover image ‘poppies’ by nuno dantas, edited under flickr creative commons permissions]
