::05:18:08::

::: Communion with my dead mother :::

Her cremated ashes still remain sealed in the same nondescript box
white, powdery and chalk like material devoid of any vestigial semblance to her once living and vibrant self that unique persona pulverized and vaporized housed former svelte and tall Arthur Murray ball-room dance teacher a half century plus prior to demise
which beauty, charm and grace quickly caught the attention of my father
who courted and eventually proposed to this young flirt and tease of a gal)inert organic matter now represents sole residual embodiment reduced to dust and near nothingness
former corporeal being of blood, bone and flesh weighing no more than a dozen hatch marks on the scale absence still bears down heavy like some millstone round the neck
per the black hole void created by defeat with Grim Reaper
toward this woman who helped birth and nurse me into manhood
momma’s only grown son still feels ripples of grievous sadness
no matter the years of suppressed anger and rage
in addition to emotional conflicts between us which invariably wrought unpleasant relationship and a legacy of discord writ large across the tapestry of my life!
Force fields from this lithe Brooklyn native(whose pronunciation a dead ringer giveaway to any amateur and junior linguist)
lives in the guise of aural spectra
especially within the hallowed sanctity of Glen Elm domicile
and continues to emit indomitable and unfading rays of pure energy and light!

Written by: ~ Penn Valley Poet