His Mother Mary’s Lamentation

It’s not because you’ve gone;

it is because you are still there

in my unbearably happy memories;

so, I had to shake off that dust

that may have clung to shoes on your feet

and leave every person who will repeat

your words, your deeds,

because they only suffer your absence.

I had to depart those familiar streets;

but, one day each Spring I will go there again

to remember your terrible death,

then two days later, imagine you arisen,

walking alongside me,

one of my hands on your broad shoulder,

the other in your confident palm

that tightens gently, as you smile, as you laugh.

For those three days, I will try to recall everything.

Some say you’re far beyond the clouds,

sitting in eternal heaven,

others say you still appear to them;

but I know that you were broken,

made rotten, became the dust.

that’s kicked up by our feet,

that we wipe from our faces,

that we breathe in

with your words, your deeds,

your love.

2023.