Days after you died
crying swelled my face
to unrecognizable;
weeks after you died
sleep kidnapped whole days
and gave me no rest;
months after you died
my smile was forced, and
there was nothing soft to lean into;
years after you died,
every Mother’s Day since,
I had no one to call.
Today my own children wish me
the happiness
I thought this day would never allow;
joyful, I thank them not for
sentiment, but for
unseen love, summoned by service:
diapers, dishes,
life from my life,
healing me when time alone could not.
I know now
I will never see all the ways
you loved me
(love, like the wind, is unseeable;
only trembling leaf or billowed sail
or kite aloft
testifies its presence)
but somewhere deep inside me
knows, that part of me
that aches on this day, always will,
like an old star