VML--Mom

Last year, my mother wrote me a letter that has been sitting on my desk ever since, awaiting my attention.  I kept it because there was a line that struck me, one that inspired me to write.  Today I finally got the chance to write the poem I've been wanting to write.  I include it here: it's no masterpiece, but I'm always glad to have something in words that was once only a vague idea.  Isn't that the ultimate goal of the writer?

Anticlimactic

For my mother’s birthday,

my father drove her up to a lovely restaurant—

a two-hour drive to find any establishment

that could be called “lovely”—

for a special dinner.

In that place, on that night

there was to be a presentation of wild birds

rescued from the wild, stern-eyed owls

and restless prey-seekers,

and a red-tailed hawk to be released

back into the wild from whence she came.

This last was the primary draw, I believe.

When writing to me about it later,

my mother deemed the event “cool,

even if it was a bit anticlimactic.

She just flew away.”

Were I that lucky once-captive,

I would have found meaning in that flight.

Having lived long years—a vast percentage

of her life—in captivity, wing feathers

brushing cages and human skin, in that moment

she lifted free of the supporting arm,

touching nothing but wind, higher than she had ever

dared to go before, only to look down

and see no one summoning her,

no one waiting for her return.

To see only farewells in human eyes.

Was there fear or contentment in her heart?

My mother and father, watching,

had no way to tell.  After all,

she just flew away.