79 and anew, begins

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