A Poem for my Dying Mother

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I remember now

your transcendental turquoise 

your placid water only shimmering 

when a child swam there once, ago

in youth’s easy summerings

 

you always waited for me there, mother

your warm soft waves surrounding in eternal, maternal (cradle of life

restoring touch - your salty kiss

within your fathoms drenched in bliss

till dead I sink to black abyss 

with nothing topside left to miss

and we will merge like tears in waves 

as death is less than passing days

 

you said death is just a stormy day 

that blows what was, so far away

that no one waits along the shore 

for things that were but are no more

 

I know because the ocean told

of life and deaths and stories old

when life first died and laughed and cried

and nothingness watched from beside

 

while children swam the plague of man

that kills what it can’t understand

and how so sick and frail became 

sweet mother, dying, from which life came

 

playground reefs of humanless peace

or so I dreamt some summer day

knowing this would soon away

I tasted time before it ended

in a sea of time suspended

I left the land and dreadful man

that killed what they don't understand

 

but mother, know I understand 

and when you die I'll hold your hand 

and there'll be nothing left for me

without my sweet beloved sea 

​

as every earth is but a grain

of dust that lives and dies in vain 

when once a child alone swam there

mother, know that I did care

and wept for you the day you died

when your sweet waves stiffened and dried

and your bloods salty tears I cried 

that flow in me like currents yours

to break on some forgotten shores

of some blue world that is no more

 

mother let me swim once more 

on summers waves on your sweet shore

and we'll forget the stain of man

and all his gods and all his plans

that never did imprison we,

the child that swam in mother sea

and having lived our death won’t mind

the miracles we left behind 

a smiling child in mother sea 

lost now in eternity