When Mother Dies Poem by Patti Masterman

When Mother dies, it's like the most familiar,
beautiful glass vase, of some rare-earth hue
that tinted all your dreams, has shattered.
It's like the secret journal, of your most hidden
hearts desires, has had the key broken off in the lock,
and will never open again.

And you can't go there again,
though it was the most familiar place,
you can't grow up again, you'll have to forge
new hopes, in the glowing embers of what was her life,
and feel her invisible eyes
hurrahing on your efforts.

Now there's no sickness or frailty
can serve to weaken her influence,
she is forever unreachable by any disaster;
a tower of invisible strength
abiding over your days:

The silent voice warning danger,
The calming voice behind pain,
her ghostly hands working overtime
in your now overgrown child's heart,
her voice just behind the audible at times.

For you never stopped being her baby-
death may end a marriage,
but it can't kill her blood,
still singing sweetly through your veins.