A poem on the death of my mother and the end of summer.

Requiem

At the end of summer, Mother died -

slipped away in the dawn

of one of summer's latter days -

and she was gone.

And I mourn her in my way,

as I feel the melancholy

of seasons' change

start to slow-dance in my heart.

And at her requiem, God

served a strange, new Kingdom wine,

and I, intoxicated,

confessed my love to one, or two,

my lurching heart looking

for the last fruits of grace,

as summer and my mother leave,

and cold autumn walks the garden.

I turn and turn again;

turn with the cycles of loss and gain,

With the earthbound cycles of seasons.

And my feet feel an accordion reel,

but I hear song - a slow lament

for all that could, that might have been,

in the graceless places where I lived -

barely lived.

And caught in the in between,

I hope, I pray

for hearth and heart,

for the full fruit of grace

and for flame,

and above all,

from me, and for me,

love.

And I am not alone.

22/03/07