Anniversary

 March 26, 2023

On this day mother has been dead for 49 years. It is absurd. Brutal. I couldn’t sing the hymns this morning for the lump in my throat. At the beach I learned from my sister– I didn’t known this before– that mother did not die in surgery. The surgery was a success. She died when some apparatus did not drain as it should and blood gathered around her heart until it could not beat. If someone had merely checked on her she would have lived. What good do rage or anguish after so many years? You cannot reach back and strike with your fist they way you long to do. Darkness gathers in the garden. I’ll wait for full dark before I stand out there and howl. 

Blue Grass at the Cathedral, not good, but spirited and well loved by those who came to hear it. 

The Florida Review sends me proofs for a poem I didn’t know they’d accepted.