My mother and I were estranged until she reached the end of her days and for some reason I was no longer the collosal the fool she had always judged me -- perhaps she was correct from the beinning only for the wrong reasons. In any case I had my one and only seizure the night she died., and found myself remembering the deep unconditional love she showed me until age ten. Life is indeed a mystery and I found myself becoming the closet person in her life. So I wrote the folowing.

Eternal Spring

The snow on Mama's grave troubles me,
though I know she has nothing to do
with the place -- this is my ground.

A chill wind trembles the dead
oak leaves in the isolate centuries
of the ancient Blue Ridge Mountains,
the cemetery a rocky path lost
in the rugged folds and hollows.

I am alone, and I feel alone.

There should be flowers, I tell myself,
an Eternal Spring for the secret life
hidden at the base of 'Things'.

But inscrutable Time leans heavy
on our suspect grief, as the wind
sings lonesome songs for the departed,
and a living truth, lost
in the confusion of our tenuous
Belief and Non-belief,
rises all around us . . .

The truth of Life,
dear Mama, risen as only Life can.