Death Poem

I wrote this for my mom and read it aloud as the family gathered to remember her.

Connection

I look out on the landscape of the world.

I search it with my heart, my spirit.

I strain to feel the invisible chain that bound us together,

even unwilling, even across the miles.

But it is gone.

Your end is empty.

I trail its links behind me like Marley’s ghost

and I grieve to feel the lightness left behind.

But perhaps, after all, it was not a chain.

Perhaps it was a tether.

And your spirit, like an impatient bright balloon,

has broken free and rushed into the sky.

I will search the sky for you sometimes and hope

to catch a glimpse of your color, dancing in the sun.