But Mother! Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

So, after all, you Are a bleeding heart,
grown up with pointed ears to let the wisdom in.
They told you, and you swallowed how it would be smart
to imitate the sheep they called your next of kin.

The Baker's daughter, catholic, and, by tradition chaste
had bedded down in brambles near the ancient mill.
The boy had been so sweet and, in the evening's haste
quicksilvery seeds had found a home, by God's own will.

They found her frozen body late on Christmas Day.
Pale ankles crushed grotesquely from the sudden fall.
She'd floated down, an angel in macabre play
a useless gasp on impact with the ground, and that was all.

Townspeople were so shocked, as were you, Mother,
two wrongs committed as an act of silly selfishness.
But I do not agree that there could be another,
an option, so-to-speak, with life itself amiss.

She did not punish those she snubbed and left behind,
the life she took was hers and by all rights was hers alone.
Perhaps she was, right when she jumped, confused and blind.
But it was freedom that she found on mossy stone.