To Mothers Watching Offspring Part

In memory of Ruth Gilmore Ambrose

Athens, Georgia

August 20, 2013; revised December 20, 2014

It was the church bells 
from just past Five Points 
as late afternoons lingered 
on the cusp of evening, ringing 
family home in those happy years 

Till one by one we left.

But ah, to rise to distant cause,
discover wings of light and gauze 
like tiny Monarchs born to fall 
who feel the ache of far away, 
forsake the fields of yesterday 

To take the wind and open skies. 

It is an odd quintessence – 
the noble hyperbole, glorious lies 
and naïve dreams of youthful tribes 
that glide above the weathered  lives
of mothers watching offspring part 

As bells toll love and ancient loss. 

What comes of cocoons came 
over her heart as dusk by dark 
the shadows crept to Gospel 
chimes and childhood rhymes, 
the sweet debris of golden times 

In mommy’s world now left behind. 

Home turns refuge, safehouse, 
cell when trapped inside that cozy shell, 
but motherlove may self-transcend, new 
causes and callings now coursing within, 
a spirit soars to greet its dreams. 

Your love redeems the churchly bells.

Photograph by David Noah, Winterville, Georgia

Boothbay Gray

Boothbay Harbor, Maine

July 12, 2013

If you hold a quiet pose

ankle deep in shallow water

soles set to fine sand

rooted into rising tide

that carved the coves

and coast of Maine,

perhaps you’ll feel a touch of grace

washed in warm midsummer

sun and bathed in midday

joy-song of brother thrush.

If you hold as tiny crablettes

scuttle-crawl across your feet

and minnows clean your wrinkled toes,

perhaps you’ll catch the seaweed sway 

to sister moon and lapping wave.

And if you chance to hold your ground

with thighs immersed beneath the tide,

perhaps your pulse will realign,

your breath reset to offshore breeze,

your mind at peace with mother sea.

Perhaps you’ll find your soul

submerged within the one eternal

moment, calm as the evening

osprey, who holds a quiet pose

on a pole with a view

to watch the daylight

slowly fade, his world

dissolve in shades of gray

and unobserved, to fly away

as silence fills the fog-bound night.

Boothbay Harbor, Maine