How Did It Get So Late So Soon?

The man who scared the ghosts away,

The woman who healed wounds with a kiss,

I think of them more nowadays

In sad and troubled times like this.

No longer there to hug the pain

From tired bones and broken hearts,

To shield you from the winter rain

That permeates where old age starts.

Another day of fleeting tasks

From rising su...

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Dear Mom... 

Every morning, the warm scent of rice from the cooker stirs me awake, 

The rhythmic echo of your footsteps, back and forth,

Followed by the sound of boiling water pouring over coffee in a cup,

Truly, it becomes a harmony I always long for, 

And, a melody I always wish to hear,

It is etched clearly in my mind.

Dear Mom... 

Your voice through the phone...

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Left

5:27 am

It is time to get up.

Airport.

Shower – I use the woman’s fancy shampoo.

Toothpaste, lotion, brush; done – in the black hygiene bag.

The woman enters the bedroom to check on me, “You have everything?”

“Yes,” I say, “I think so; if I leave anything, you could send it to me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Okay,” I say.  She walks to the kitchen and sits down softly with ...

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Father told me, when i was young, that his mother told him ‘if you can fit pinky to thumb around your wrist you are too thin’. When I managed to grasp my arm half way up, pinky to my thumb, I saw success. It’s hard to see sadness when you are sick. Mother taught me forgiveness was not earnt, but expected. So, when you lied to me I knew what I was to do next.

         The cathedral was o...

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Her kitchen, quiet, layered with dust,

aged a decade deep,

Her table laid and draped in cloth

before she fell asleep.

The oven framed her bread of crust,

sliced up for all to keep.

Time unwound and ticked no more,

before she fell asleep.

Three shirts to dry lay mouldy, in a musty

laundered heap.

Her life had spun in cycle,

before she fell asleep.

...

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I dreamt of my mother’s egg-blue peg bucket

and how the clatter of rain

on the scullery window sent

her heartbeat racing.

I remember us scurrying

down the backyard

to free her hung dry clothes

from their pegged wooden captors.

She watched as we yanked disrespectfully,

faded jeans and t-shirts flailing

and the pegs snapping,

reluctantly letting go.

I remember wat...

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It was the copper-green crust on 

salt fingers that hinted

the well was dry.

It had been months, years even,

of arid unconscious blessings.

A ritual, like the quick of bitten nails,

formed in the dousing of us weans.

It had been our mother’s blessing, 

foreheads drenched on each departing. 

Her three fingered aspergillum

observed from the flickering neon.

Bles...

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Someone had to show me the way,

though much of the time I just followed mine

so you watched from the distance, I know.

But it’s clear to me now, wish I’d seen it somehow

and done more to make sure that you know -

your example means more than the whole world to me,

for you stood your whole life for what’s true.

Yeah, somebody had to show me the way…

Mom, I’m grateful th...

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The primrose with its glowing face held high

Brings promise of the softer days of Spring

And gazes up towards the wind ripped sky

Through branches to the sunlight, filtering

New leaves unfold beneath the solemn frost

Where clasped they lie and frozen to the earth

A voice like yours is permanent, not lost

The primrose glows to celebrate your birth

And now each year it brings...

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Today my friend buries her mother in a coffin she has painted by hand. Today my friend's father tells her that she has taken on too much responsibility in the matter. She tells me he made her feel like she did not have a choice. Today I will get my hair cut. Today by mid day my friend will have buried her mother. My friend is only twenty four. Her daughter is two. I ask my friend how she has been ...

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I am my mother's tethered umbilical cord

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