Remembering

Philadelphia

I started the month of May by writing about my mother on Mother's Day, and mentioned that she "owned" May with a birthday and anniversary in that month,too. Here is a piece I wrote the Spring after her death in 1999.

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From the time I can remember, my mother bought me a flat of pansies every Spring.
She and I would walk out into the mud slick Iowa morning and choose their new home.

I would plant whatever she gave me . Sometimes cornflower blue violas
with brilliant yellow centers or white pansies graced
with a deep purple face and oriole eyes.

I loved the blue pansies. Still do. And in the Spring when I plant alone,
I think of her with each troweled hole, each dose of peat, each scoop of rich top soil.

Since Mother died, I sit by the stream of my new found land and mourn.

At my feet amid the gleaming, gurgling rocks, is a blanket of small blue flowers,
dotted with their pinpoint yellow centers.

M.C.