melissaahowells
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I heard a small child say:
"Why is it when people go they don't ever come back? "And why are good-byes, often, are not so good?" Today the March snow falls. Spring is nowhere near. Warmer days are a foggy distant memory. I squint. Try to recall why you liked Winter best... How you could skate backwards... and make school figures with precision. You sang mezzo-soprano in the church choir on Christmas morning so proudly. And when you struggled through my birth enduring fifty-eight hours of intense labor. still... I resented you for what I thought was your continuous campaign for self-improvement of me or anything within your sphere of influence. Many years we made ornaments together for the tree. Sold most of them at a boutique for spending money. Sang carols while we baked quick breads and cookies. I never told you how much I hated Christmas, but, especially, my birthday. Why didI protect your feelings, while burying my own? Several days before you died, you called me to reconcile. I ignored the phone, your pleading message. Today as I stand here in silence, your eyes are closed in death. Yet you appear to be sleeping... Your clothes are stacked neatly on a corner chair. You most likely wore clean underwear... and the freckles are strewn fresh across your face like familiar daisies. I've counted every furrows in your brow. Each worry line is there. Panic has begun to settle in. I know... Surely this is my mistake. Where do the dead go, how they get there? This isn't some stupid question a silly child needs to know. Its all wrong. Mother's gone Father's gone... orphaned now the motherless child. Time has sped on winged heels. A familiar ache remains in persistent, dulled defiance. She once said to me "You're stubborn... full of ill will and indignant self-reliance. So now my toes curl rooted into the floor as I rage away in renewed anger and defiance. Mom, I need you now yet I can no longer ask. Time tapped you on your shoulder years ago my want remains but you are beyond the task thus is the tyranny of the final silence. straight to the page. Legal copyright for this poem March 6, 2019/1:30PM PST time/date stamped and also for this Writer/Author/Poet Melissa A. Howells and also for this LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE-- MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD re-edited for clarity and emotion March 8 2019/7:49 PM PST. Vote for this poem |
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