IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK
The Keeper of Her Ashes
A poem
I.
She would staunchly refuse resuscitation
That had long been decided
as it was who she was
Life was not something to resist
and neither was death
Yet this is not who I would know
until many years had passed
and long after cobwebs had collected
around the urn meant to hold her
I found it was easier to stomach
the thought of lifeless metal
her faint voice receding in my ear
and the pickaxe already packing dirt in my heart
poisoned with a cruel weakness
II.
In that weakness I stood alone in a guarded field
where I could hide away —
from the war of loving someone who neared the end
the bombs falling in hospital waiting rooms
the shrapnel left by rounds of chemo
— my family with nothing but kindness in their hearts
doing battle without me
The golden grass fluttered softly around my heels
and the wind spoke to me memories of sweeter times
Laughing a child’s laugh
rubbing grandma’s lipstick from my cheek in the car
Hiding away in my guarded field
the empty urn sitting idly at my feet
III.
Around it the spider wove
not the forgotten names of my brother and I,
her weeping as we stood masked on the driveway
not able to hug us
not able to understand why
Not prostate cancer
stealing her beloved at fifty
Three wars waged against brain cancer
finally spinning her final days of fog
Not choking on weak currents of breath
and the dew of sobbing
But a web of jewelry from traveled lands
white butterflies dancing amongst the lilies
bathed in triumphant laughter in spite of it all
Of love as abundant as sunshine
And there it would wait for me
so that when I kissed her hand goodbye
what my lips felt was a web woven in bold and defiant life
the keeper of her ashes
