by Carol Ellis
Maybe we are shadowed now, as all of us
advance to age. We know loss
and the story of grief. We imagine
how others will speak it.
How did we become and hold to what we are?
Something about the river, the face of it
in rain. Moonrise above the valley,
orange between dark cloud.
Dogwood blossom glimpsed
beside the highway going east.
Nance says we should be mindful,
notice things. She sits at the window
watching snow, too frail now to walk in it,
afraid to fall. I know she loves the city transformed.
Mother died at seventy.
I thought her old then.