Nothing in my hands;
I stood at the brink of my mother’s grave.

The center gone out of my life,
I shuffled through the motions
I said the words she wanted,
Did the things she wanted,
Stood embattled against relatives
And friends who didn’t understand:

Why I didn’t look at her corpse
(She forbade it.)
Why I didn’t invite a clergy-man
(She was spiritual, not religious)
Why I didn’t buy a headstone
(She said care for the living)
Why I didn’t beg for her to come back
(Although my heart bled)

She was my center–
And I didn’t even know
Till that voice was stilled
And my heart was hollow
As an old tree
Cored out by rot.

And there were my own children
clustered around me
Needing care, needing me
There was my grandmother
More lost than I, had I but known.
Nothing to do but the motions
To keep on going
With my hollow heart
And my empty hands.

For all that I am,
She made.
For she left me a legacy
Of love, of responsibility,
Of nurture, of answering call to duty;
Of anger, of gentle loneliness,
Of feeling what is in the world.

Like the empty tree,
I try to be
Home for goodness,
Not home for good intent.
But I am hollow,
My hands are empty.
I hope
The motions
Are the right ones.

My Mother, as a high school student.

1931-1989

Dead of COPD and anorexia.

She gave everything she had to her family.