Most of Life

most of life she takes
with mouth wide open and eyes half-shut -
look through the poleroids and note her eyes
squinched up with joy,creases spreading out - a network of love-lines, loveliness,
binding motherhood & Dad & us all up tight.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light...

her mouth is open now as she sleeps
like some stone goddess all her features now in harmony - the light is buried
even so she adorns this hospital room. The muted white walls
had forgotten the beauty of the human battle -
my mother's war-cry still echoes down the startled corridor
and
I long for her to reawaken and re-engage. Molars exposed, eyelids compressed,
and life inside coming through her parted lips:
Pain and my mother,
locked in struggle for the glorious, mundane, tedious thing we've named
"old age." LIVING IS LIVING,
whether sunrise or sunset, and she wants to live hers to the
full and proper end...

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay. . .

I have not written it yet, but perhaps I will.
When she wakes up.
How my mother loves to laugh,
laugh with mouth wide open.....