A morning will come for mourning you
but let me tell about today,
the day after we carried your casket:
a day of good rain, slow and steady,
a rain for reading old rhymes
Migrating mallards float
on wetland pools,
mates bent so deep in water
all I can see is their rumps
wagging at a changeable sky
Tulips burn candle red
reminding me of your flower beds,
begonia, iris, daffodils,
how you became a flower among flowers,
your hair a rose white
This morning I’m playing Vivaldi
on the stereo, resolving to be more kind:
I had forgotten the boy I was,
a descendant of farmers, the son
you breastfed on Terrace Street
I’d forgotten how you read to me
on a sofa during thunderstorms, how you
knelt for a kiss and cried when I stood
at the door with a pillow case of treasures
on a hobo stick from our magic tree