John and Mary
Tag Archives: Mourning
JOHN AND MARY
JOHN AND MARY
John Berry writes a poem
for his dear departed Mary
and reads it at all the open mics
It is a lovely poem
about parallel universes
and all the other ways
they might have met
or never met at all
He tells me that it changes
every time he reads it
which makes sense
since it is well known
that you can never step
in the same poem twice
I hear that it is also true of rivers
BURYING THE POET
BURYING THE POET
The great poet died so suddenly
her student thought that she
would surely die as well
At the funeral she fell quickly
and deeply in love
with the poet’s tall
young son
Took him back to the hotel
her wound open, his
mother’s life
entering
THE UNVEILING
THE UNVEILING
On the first anniversary of my mother’s death
I find myself in the middle of New Mexico
the day late, and a prayer short
I stop my Catholic nun friend, now
married and converted Jewish
and tell her of my plight
Also the hope that she
or her husband might have
some words to fit the occasion
The answer is yes, the word is Kaddish
and they are meeting with the Rabbi
to arrange the Friday Shabat supper
Myself, Dorsey, Paul, Maryrita and Dan
now five, the number of her children
sit in circle in the hotel lobby
Paul is a new Rabbi and a very sweet man
he forgets some of the words, Dan helps
I say “her Hebrew isn’t that good,
I don’t think she’ll mind”
I am touched that the prayer is of praise
and not of mourning, and the idea
that whatever good I might do,
my brothers and sisters too,
are her gifts to the world
This may be a poem about salt
there is something about salt
and her gift from our eyes
as we share