Mourning Mother

She was sitting on the hilltop. The many colored flowers

grew there. They had blossomed that morning.

These were the second flowers. The second rains had

stopped and stopped. The sun had warmed the earth and

overnight the flowers had grown and flowered.

The first flowers, so like the ones she gazed on,

had withered. Those that had lasted a few days

had been washed away by the second rains.

Her pain was evident.

Her first flower had vanished.

It couldn’t have withered for it didn’t have time. The sun hadn’t shined on it

enough,

She had buried so many before & since her

First flower.

Her husband was long gone.

The one who had given her life had left her

alone.

All the funerals she had been to. All of the

tears she had cried.

None of them were so bitter nor did all of them

add up to the ones for her first flower.

That one should have been an oak. She thought

he was going to be. Maybe a pine or cottonwood.

Not a spring flower no one would remember.

Many remembered him but next to her, no one

remembered her first flower.

 What were seasons. He had known not even one

in her eyes tho’ he had seen many.

Not to her. The old should not bury the

young.

She didn’t pick flowers even when she was a

little girl. Some by the road, she liked a lot

but never picked them. She didn’t grow them

either. Never time for a garden anyway.

All the flowers that bloom forever now had only

a little color and a little perfume.

The warmest sun had a little chill. She could

feel it. No one else could shiver in that

sun on that hillside but she could.

Her first flower. Could he be picked out of

all the rest by anyone but her. When all the

feel it. No one else could shiver in that

sun on that hillside but she could.

Her first flower. Could he be picked out of

all the rest by anyone but her. When all the

rest had let him go, she held on a little longer.

Who could comfort her. He was no more.