My Mom

"Prayer for My Mother"

Let every moment of every day break upon her with the dazzle of utter newness, and let her exult in it.

Let wonder rule: the sky more lovely

than she's ever seen, the birds that

come by the hundred to her feeder.

Please let her forget that she does not

remember. Let her lose somehow the torment of losing her mind. Let there be insight in the one page that,

over and over for days, she reads for

the first time, never gets beyond.

Let the living past be vibrant in her dreams

each night, her mother, her brother at

her side, showering her with love.

Please let her eyes open in the morning not to the despair of the lost at sea, but to the familiar play of sunlight in the leaves outside her window, the solid sense that she is safe, the firm ground of home.