All For The Pain Of Loving Me Poem by Patti Masterman

Now that you are gone
I can tell you about some things.
Now that you're no longer here,
I realized that I missed your card playing
In late evenings and early mornings;
Your patient placing of the cards,
Which put my randomly arranged thoughts into order,
Where peace reigned; even the simple peace of cards;
Their royalty pressed flat against a tabletop-
You were always my Queen, Mother.

Now that you are gone
I can tell you, you always took time for me;
And sometimes I tremble, to think that perhaps
I was impatient, not realizing you had come to the end;
Nearly there, and worried about lights burning out, and the impotence
Of lying in a bed of flowering bedsores.
Nobody ever treated me with as much continuous caring
As you did. You deserved a better ending;
Like everybody in this world.
You taught me about bottomless loving,
No matter the temperature of the rest of the world.
You, Father, were the wise King of my kingdom, treating me like a princess.

Now that you are gone
Half my world is gone away, though I have a new family now;
The flesh of my flesh, and the flesh I joined my own with.
They are not here to fill your void, for no one could ever do that.
Half the world has fallen away, and I dream that somewhere far,
In some kindly, other-worldly universe, you go on playing cards;
Caring and loving, nourishing other hearts
You have been given dominion over,
In your ten thousand tirelessly imaginative ways.

I imagine this, because it makes it more tolerable;
I would spend my eternity, if it were mine to give,
Paying you back in kind for every lovely memory I now hold
As a lamp, burning only for you.
On long nights, I would say every decade of your rosary.
You lit my world, and yet slowed it's burning;
I long to give you back a life, and would count it as small reward indeed-
For all your pain of loving me.