Last year
I spent this time
holding the thin hands
of a dying woman.  I brought flowers
from mother’s garden:  hyacinth,
daffodils, forsythia.  It rained,
as it rains today;
water presses my hair flat
and I walk, remembering.

I could not sit silent
while her hands moved
through air, while her mouth
shaped words without sound, while her eyes
refused to open.  I read her
Pound and Eliot:  Petals on a wet black bough,
and, in the room the women come and go
until she smiled.

Today, sparrows wake me early,
gathering last year’s leavings;
the grass I cut,
did not sweep before snow.

2.  Vigil

We stand, breaths fanning
one hundred candles.  I sing
of resurrection
and see only your face/our words
catch light, embody fire.

My candle burns for her,
for trees expanding
in rain that heals,
for birds weaving life
from old leaves, for flowers
filling a room you will not see again,

For that smile telling me
this is not a day of endings,
this is the day she began.