The Skater's Mother Died Poem by Patti Masterman

The skater's mother died
As soon as she had arrived in the foreign city
Where her daughter was to skate
In the Olympic program.
And so there she died; and the girl
Still had to skate, on cue;
Do her best, for the mother
Who ought, as always,
To be sitting out there in the audience.
In the large, moving sea of unintelligible faces;
One could be any other,
Seen from the ice, moving fast
As a storm cloud,
A whirlwind unleashed on an ice floe.

And there they greeted her with such love
And caring, understanding her predicament,
That she was seized by their humanity, as a whole;
That she skated as if she were dancing
Only for them, underneath the meditative silence
Of the one who was not there, in body only;
For surely in spirit she had been well honored.

And somewhere far above that stadium,
That city; another free spirit was swept away
In the pastel colored clouds, while hearing
That loving outcry for her child, not really understanding
That she was dead, and on her way heavenward;
Only that all things were right;
Her child was basking in the kindest glow,
Full of a strange, exultant happiness
Somewhere far beneath;
And as she still had places herself, to go
then, she spread her wings wide
and then.. she just.... flowed...