I Mourn My Mother

Some poems I wrote for my mother - they are all quite old now.  She died 25 years ago today.  I loved her deeply and am grateful for all she was.

This, you implied

In duty, without complaint, rise early,

take dawn’s sheen to the day.

Dust particularly what is unseen,

sweep up any flakes of ingratitude,

stitch loose threads into purpose, and

cleanse from your mouth the unspeakable;

do this quickly, before is added

tarnish to steadfastness, loyalty.

Unwrap, slowly, the gift of evening,

soothing the uneasy earth with music,

surrender yourself to laughter,

catch the sparkle of late-night exchange,

dream of the eternal and possible.

Live full, not fast.

The Days do not Admit your Face

The days do not admit your face,
your image somehow fading in the light.
Yes, there are the photographs,
the chair on which I drop my clothes.
Sometimes there is even a look of you
in my son’s dimples, when I put up my hair;
but there is also the end-to-end claim
of the present, the squeeze of the young.

 

So yours is the half-wakeful space,
the small-houred time where,
dreamful, I drift amongst
fragments of your story:
I strive to place them, piece them,
fit them together.

This final autumn

It is fitting, this blazed-red end,

this final heave of summer heat

sustained into your fraction of a season.

The earth is giving you all the glory

of the autumns you are owed,

saving its most till your last.

It is the trees which know best,

gold-framing the bedroom window

where you lie, opening an eye

to greet them; these trees which have

marked your life in so many quarters:

bare, green, broad and shedding.

Now, most innocent you,

fetched up high on the drugs

we have fed you,  remark,

wistfully, on the teddy bears

ambling, picnicking in the branches;

untethered now, you join them.

Kept

If I opened this tin,

if I opened this tin again,

this tin, which was yours and is mine;

if I were to grasp, twist, slide, lift,

reveal the ribbons, clasps and bands

which held your lovely, lively hair;

if I, reckless and wanting,

were to open this tin again,
I would breathe in the last fragrance,
residue of the smell of you,
captured, kept, for a time, in this tin
which was yours and is mine.

Sally Lefroy - 1937-1989