We didn't give you
a proper send off mum.
(I regret it now)
but then,
I resented
the 'friends'
who never bothered
when you were old
and irritatingly frail.
So we filled the house with flowers
and Bach
and the bunch who cared.
And dear old Ted
(who used to prune the garden)
offered to
'do the honors'
with the rose bush.
Later,
after sandwiches
and Gibran
we traipsed out into the garden.
Unfortunately
the ashes proved
a tad voluminous
for Ted's carefully prepared resting place,
so I concealed (surreptitiously)
the excess in the cupboard in the hall.
When I left the conjugal home
some months later,
my ex found your 'brick'
and dumped it on the drive
with a rude note.
So I took you home
and scattered the other half of you
over my new garden
with my new lover standing beside me.
And something tells me
dearest mother,
you would have smiled.
Alison Cassidy
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mum-s-ashes/
