it's mom's seventy-ninth today:
i called her when i felt she would
be able to talk, her attentions now
abridged by the poison of illness
she was going to the greenhouse
with Dad, she told me, where they
would pick flowers to fill the
boxes around the house
there were many years he would
drive her to New Hampshire
to dine at their favorite
restaurant on this day
but now, trips are forestalled
by a simple silent hand
and all approaches to the
once-before normal are dried up
outside my kitchen window
the peonies stand praising the sun
and await their may bloom
now that the cold crack of winter is over
they can live to be 100,
each fall dying back into the
mother and each spring emerging,
yawning green and leaning
a hardy flower,
a flower that resonates with
the power of something
regenerative, something silver-tongued
my mother said goodbye
after a few minutes, her voice
fevered with fatigue;
she needed to go nap, she said
the peonies will flower
soon, brightly; i won't know the color
but i will put my nose to them
and breathe in their bright lives
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