“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

It happened that I was able to spend a great deal of time with my mother in the weeks before her death; I was holding her hand when she died. This poem is for her.

So?

So, I try now to tie you to this world even as you pass.
Soon, you who breathed, whose heart beat, who looked for love,
Shall be only a fleeting phantom of vanished memory
Soon enough, I shall follow.
Shall I then go on with this pathetic dance,
Trying to snare you within my world even as you begin the Great Dream?

Well, you whose eyes look into mine,
It does not matter, does it?

My words are mere curtained lines muttered beside a musty stage.
But you and I shall live in the eyes of every safe and happy child,
In the delicate blossom of a moment of contentment,
Even it be one snatched in some snipped of a second from the jaws of terror or the claws of hunger:

O you who looked for love -
I shall remember
Your search.
I shall remember
Your love.
I shall remember
You
And how you, giving, found love
Not where you expected it
In the Great Highway,
But elsewhere,
Nestled warm and quiet
Secure beneath the trampling of the Grand Parade,
For you knew the Hidden Treasure,
And you tossed aside the tales of the Powerful and Rich as scribbled jokes
That litter the unkept ground beside
The Memorial of Life.

 All text on this page is the work of J W Durham and is licensed only under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Other licensing terms may be available. E-mail me