YES MOTHER I WILL BE BACK

My mother is old and ill.
Each breath a chore
of undefined origin.

She doesn't look like my mother;
and I know that the shell is weak.
As she begins to fail again I fear the
darkness of a world without her.

I understand, accept and appreciate that
the circle must be completed.
Yet the sound of her voice is comfort.

I hate that she is resigned to an institution where
strangers on eight hour tours of duty- "care" for her.
I hate that this place so sickens me that I run from her
in this time with that as the excuse.

My mother is ...
alive for me forever in the manner of my speech and the
tenderness of my heart.

My mother...
stands tall in my memory in all her glorious imperfection.

My mother...
deserved better than me for she has lived courageously in a world
I will never understand.

My mother...
judges me with each unexplained tear as the sadness
that peered out at me from birth, haunts my history and renders me
impotent in the world.

All that I know of her is overshadowed by the mystery.
When I was a boy the story goes...
and now that I am a man
I am
still unsure.

I fight to reconcile the realization of the inevitable.

I long to find solace in the comforting understanding of God's immutable law.
Ashes to ashes,
dust to dust,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Grant me this day
that I may hold thy will as comfort
and bravely face a world where her voice is silent.