I used to bring you wildflowers from the canyon

black-eyed susan’s, grass widows,

and buttercups

            which barely survived the trip up the long dirt road to you

You would gather them and place them in a Kerr jar

            for everyone to admire –

                         until every petal had shriveled and fallen

            laying in pollen dust on the oak table

No matter that your eyes swelled up and your nose ran

In those days you were omnipresent,

filling up every corner of my young world with Little Orphan Annie and

            the “Boomdeeada” song, lemon Jell-O cake and

                        25-cent foot rubs           

I guess no one is ready for the giants in their lives to die

            even when their suffering is as large as their living

You kept it mostly a secret.

              We the conspirators didn’t even really know what you carried

When I was 22, I called you two nights running and you weren’t ‘yourself’

            “You have always been too sensitive about these things,” you said, hiding

            I was the sensitive one, I guess it is true – because I knew. 

                        I would go to my room,

                                    open up my praying window, and dissolve into musical tones

to block the cacophony that seemed to unsettle                                                               even the wind

Still I carried you – and the family – wrapped up in gold linen

            until I could no longer do so

But now, thank God, the secrets that you guarded like jewels are

shining. 

If you had shared them, you might have realized they weren’t nearly

worth the hiding

            So here I stand – going the way of every orphaned daughter

            I hold your blue robe 

            I weep by your body

            I admire your beauty even in death.

In time we will fling your ashes

back into your past

the wondering will give way to grace,

and we will let go of what will never be

For now, though, I will leave your slippers by the table.

~March 22, 2006~