Departures: On Mother’s Passing
The week you were buried
I dug up the Peace Rose
you had so lovingly tended.
It was more rescue than theft.
How could I have left her
to a new owner’s whims?
To one heedless of her name
or unaware of her needs?
Interred with skill, and fed,
she should have bloomed anew,
or at least leafed lustily
in wordless gratitude.
Then you, I mean she, vanished!
Missing, with only emptiness
to prove she had been here,
or that I had ever cared.
I could have endured the loss
had she departed as you did,
a petal at a time, wafted away
by dementia’s chill hand.
But memory, too, was rooted up,
gone to a place unknown.
I can only follow your flight path
with my own wind-shaken petals.
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