My Mother
The long shadows walk in the sun,
walk with the sound of lament,
the wild pipes’ Scottish lay.
The work's just begun
but the short day is done.
Walk where the wild flowers sway,
and the long shadows play.
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She stoops to touch
each leaf under her feet,
calling its name.
She walks the tangled fields
always among friends.
And through the wreckage
of the world’s ideas
steering a free true course
through warring bigotries,
my star that guides heart-mind
carries her name.
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Lupine pink and blue and white,
such a simple lovely sight.
Lupine blue and white and pink:
life’s a rocky road I think.
Lupine pink and white and blue,
life so short and love so true.
Beloved one, through all our life
(daughter, sister, mother, wife)
when the lupine blooms anew
its beauty fills our hearts with you.
All our lives you have your part
(life so short, so sweet each breath.)
Your love has grown
so deep in our hearts,
it cannot be uprooted
even by death.
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Mid-Eastern Goddess of living fire,
immortality,
worshiped in antiquity,
Asherah is the Tree of Life.
Biblical burning bush intoned:
“Ayer, Asher, Ayer.”
Africans end their prayers:
Ashe! earthing Her energy.
______________________________
My mother’s ashes
represent to me
that she is now beyond
all pain,
safe from indignity.
In my brother’s backyard
they will help to grow
flowers planted in her memory.
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She will always be for me
Earth Mother,
surrounded by flowers,
always be a tree;
quaking aspen, delicate, sparkling,
dancing in the wind.
Fruitful and nurturing,
she gave life to
my brother, sister, me.
Her grand-children and great-grand-children
carry on
her genes and ingenious legacy,
now that she, the poet’s
gone.
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Trying to ease the news
of my mother’s death,
I told my little grandson truth:
“She felt very proud and glad
to know you are doing a good job
going ahead into the future.”
He responded loyally,
“We’re proud of her,
doing such a good job
going ahead of us into the past.”
____________________________
She said, dying,
that she was content
going back to nature.
She is Mother Nature for me,
always surrounded by flowers,
Flowers also fade and disappear,
but they bloom undying
in loving light of memory.
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Dying at 93, my mom
put my cold hand under her armpit and said,
“Mrs. Howversen warmed my hand like this
when I was a child coming in from sledding.”
Such a tender, lucid moment of good mothering,
reaching out past death to warm the future!
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I am a woman with a knife,
bending
among reeds and willows,
cutting the mint
I planted years ago:
this joyous rampant tangle
that will outlive me.
Everywhere She walks
Her footprints
spring up herbs and flowers,
yes, and the hidden gifts
of Her strong medicines.
The knife is also Hers,
cutting down the harvest.
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When I return to the well-spring,
Holy Source,
I’ll meet my old black cat
who loved to drink
from a cup in the sink,
her panther haunches high,
ready to spring,
the freshest water
reflecting yellow fire in her eyes.
When I return
I will feel the whisker-thrill
of wilderness as a caress.
I will thank the black
River of Abundance
and drink deep.
© Tamara Rasmussen 2018