Legacies
Mother died at the honorable age of one hundred and one
Born a Gemini, she died under a different constellation
So familiar to us, her old life was different from everyone
Without frills, pale pretences or any mental augmentation
Mother was real, and she understood what I never forgave
In her. All my life I wanted her to claim her material rights,
To consume her pride on something defiant of the grave
Of father that bequeathed her a wounded gourd with blights;
To marshal us a promise that we could not see in our gift.
All my life outside the edge of her experience I’ve yearned
To castle her pedigree on the status of hope’s starved thrift
And yet every offering I brought by her shrine was spurned.
She had her wealth invested where nothing rust, and life
For her was all she was giving to us. It was a strange gift
The legacy she bequeathed us, and sometimes her truths knife
Sorrows to our dreams, burden with no wind or song to lift
Us from our extremes. Mother’s wealth was her children
And for each of us again her God would empty his heaven.
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