A Mother's Prayer

“Too late”, she said –
     “I feel the icy fingers of that dreaded storm
          Creep round the edges of my failing life
               This blustery night.

“Too late”, she said –
     “I'll never leave this place just as I feared,
          And this will be the sum of all my life
               Here in this dreadful place.

“Too late”, she said –
     My mind is gone, and yet my heart pumps on
          Within my fading body's broken remnant
                Of its former self.

“Why now this end?
     Why not some time far down the trail
          When I've lost it all, and nothing's left
                Except this joke I'm living out?

“His was the way –
     He did not have to suffer this indignity,
          But died a swift, though somewhat painful
               Ending to his life.

“'Twas hard on us –
     And yet I crave his morphine-laden end,
          With family gathered round to ease the burden
                Of his final walk.

“And so it ends –
     It was a good life here, down East, and up
          Where blizzards, black flies, sweep unwary souls
               Away before their time.

“I may not die
     Just yet, but know my heart has gone and
          Now I wait within these walls as many do –
               Such warehouses of death.

“I hate this life –
     Not like before when we had spring,
          And sun lit up our pathway filling us
                With hope of goodness
                    round the bend;

“Not summer when
     The heat made life oppressive, and
           The coolness of the shoreline breeze
                Refreshed us to press on
                     To end of day;

“Not life in fall –
     When mist and color spoke bleak days to come,
          Yet carried promise that fresh life
               Would burst anew
                     Beneath the snows;

“This winter life –
     This life when I'm misunderstood,
          And strangers poke and prod my failing body
               To give care, and ease my days. []

“This winter life –
     When friends and family live so far away,
          And days long since have crossed that bar
               To ocean depths
                    Where too I ago.

“This winter life –
     Of watching blizzards swirl around
          The courtyard out my window
               Like a mirror to my feelings deep within.

“Three days you spent
     My Lord and Saviour when the world
           Rejected you, committing you to winter –
                Like this place of living hell.

“You freed those folks –
     I pray that I may also feel your freedom
          In this place where now I wait long
               Hours in boredom's endless days.

“Grace me today –
     Now I can't do, but only bear this burden
          Till at last the warming rays
               Of strengthening sun brings spring relief.

“Lift up my soul –
     Now downcast, crushed beneath this load
           I was not built to carry all alone
                Here, in these walls of cold cement.

Bring fam’ly round –
     That I might feel once more the comfort
          Of their love and laughter as their lives
               Go on till paths divide at last.

“I was there once –
     And feel the burden now my parents lived,
          I stood helpless to address their needs,
               And life ground to a halt.

“I under-stand –
     And yet I don't, not for myself or
          Parents in their final days, so
               Ponder fates of kids
                    Who too will die.

“Throughout my life –
      My mind was focused on Good Friday's pain
           And a sudden ending of Your life,
                But not three days
                     Of living hell.

“I skipped all that –
     And jumped to Easter's wonderment;
          And filled the time with coloured eggs,
               And the children's halting lines
                    Of wax laid down.

“Spring color back –
     To this drab life within these dreary walls,
           That vibrancy I celebrated once
                 Might fill my heart once more.

navigation