Freewrite on my mother's death

DRAFT

I am most at home among the ridges
I am myself among the hills.

Her shoes clattered on the pavements
I heard ponies or goat hooves
Her shoes clattered on the road
like a herd of goats.

The flies practiced vertical ascent in late afternoon
Why should I heal on someone else's time?
Where does the self and in the horror horizon begin?
Why is it that we don't that we want to bring order to chaos?

Before she died
my mother said babies
are more interesting than cats.
When I hugged Blackie
grabbing my small comfort.

The cancer, she said, it came back.
But I didn't hear her and said angry things.
The following Wednesday her heart failed her.
The dark years growing like small stones.

I fought the urge to rewind time
I wanted to rewind time
I remember what she said,
her eyes left to Stevie Wonder.
Her ashes to the tide.
I left the box in the closet
just like the way she had left me
so many times before.

The horses listlessly lipped at the hay
It was a season of continuous drought.
No time for tears.

The phone rings in an empty room.
The whispering of angel wings in the distance,
says plenty of time for rest


From  Jack Grapes' workshop