Honor your father and your mother.
Deuteronomy 5:16 NIV
"Pretty Things"
My
mother liked red roses,
red
lipstick, and red towels,
anything red, actually.
Her
pleasure fanned the air with warmth.
Sparkly
brooches and scented soaps
cluttered
her dresser drawers,
unworn
and unused.
Ownership
was enough.
Back
in the day, she steered a red
farm
tractor around mown fields,
tedding
hay and singing to the sun:
A-maz-ing grace – how sweet the sound.
Any pretty
thing distracted my mother
from
her chapped hands, sunburned
skin,
and aching back:
a hummingbird fluttering around the bee balm.
Now
my mother sleeps on white sheets,
lifting
her chin like a child
while
a nurse bathes her body.
She
wanders in a thicket of memories.
See
the red geranium
spreading
its leafy arms
toward
her hospital bed.
Watch
my mother close her eyes
while
blood fills the needle.
Footnote: My mother passed away on August 22, 2012. I wrote this poem to honor her.
