REMEMBERING MOTHER


old lady, where are you off to?
shuffling your feet slowly, stiffly
in a world rushing by swiftly, vaguely
where so many flowers lie in sweet decay
unoffered and scorched in the sun's foray
where so many flavors are left unsavored
where so much time is spent fabricating nil
and best intents are set by greed, not deed

how many dreams have you fulfilled?
how many dreams have you left behind?
was there a time that you ever twirled
to some imaginary music
in some imaginary barn
on some imaginary moonlit night...

how many suckling babes have feasted on your breasts?
how many...
that you've reared, and fed, and bathed, and clothed
how many...
that now you are left with no hand to hold

how many pains does your heart cradle?
how many secrets do you keep in your barrel?
here you trudge on the same weary path
picking some familiar faces in some snug places
from your own comfortably weary past...

old lady, where are you off to?
what lies there waiting that you have to go?
will this fast-aging world care to stop
and know what you know?
will it ever remember a moment untold...
when the sun was searing and the air was curt
and there in the shade you spread your skirt
where it laid its scuffle-weary steer
cocooned and cosseted in its mother's sphere


I was out on the streets today... one of those glorious days that I could spend aimlessly. I saw an old woman, bent from the hips, painfully walking by. She was all alone.