And on that last Mothers Day,
when the birch leaves
fluttered pale gold,
and the magpies chortled
in the garden,
and the children gathered
round the big bed
clutching the presents
(all edible)
that they knew you’d share,
You looked into their eager faces
and their cards (hand made)
and said:
‘I’m so lucky.
So lucky to have
my lovely family all around me’.
And your eyes sank deep in their bank of pillows,
your back bent into a question mark,
your knees making a tent of the doona.
The books that lined your room,
you’d read again and again:
‘I’ve usually forgotten what happens,
but they’re always pleasantly familiar’.
The children opened the sugared almonds
(your favorites for as long as I can remember)
You handed them round the circle,
sucking yours gingerly:
‘Don’t want to break these teeth
now that Malcolm’s not round to fix them’.
Eight weeks later
pneumonia allowed you a graceful exit.
It was your eighty eighth birthday.
Alison Cassidy
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mother-s-last-mothers-day/
