( written a week after my mother died)

Marilu

I stuck the Virgin in the dirt today
She was Moms cracked Madonna
I cut my hand on her china skirt fray
Porciline, tears and earth her fate.

My mother died, that is whats real
Mother of Eight standing at the gate.

My hand is bleeding and it stings
The garden awaits her ashes
The great One smiles and I feel Her flames
I listen for Her voice and get hot flashes.
And hear the wind and the chirp of robins.

And my day, my life my blood flows on,
Realizing Death
In all its starkness
Awaits us all.
While the birds sing and the flowers shimmer
My heart throbs quietly with the deeper pulses of the earth.

Ashes await my sprinkling hand
My mother will rejoin the land
As she hands me over to the Ancient One,
Crone so welcome to me.
Mother you hand me over,
Mother to mother your place in the famiy tree
I bow.
I am yours, Mother Mom
Mother Crone I become
Closer To your embrace.

-May 8, 1999