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A mother's day poem from my collection for today on this Mothers Day (U.S.A.):
"Mama’s Grave"
When everyone else had gone away
I stood and watched the men --
grave-diggers, the coverer-uppers.
They hung back giving space
in the tree shrouded graveyard
because they’d seen it before.
My need to be there -- alone, the last,
the oldest son’s goodbye. I bent
and scooped the dry clodded earth
Rolling it ‘round in my hand.
I dropped it carefully clump by clump
as the men stood silently by.
I heard each thump, each sound, each tap
on the silver-gray lidded box echo inside,
a hollow sound, a knocking at the door.
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