gone heaven's blue palette,
pocked with whiffs of white cloud,
her last day, the sky wore only winter's grey,
she a gossamer gown, soon her shroud

an ancient arterial breach had filched
her gift of speech--her hearing, too, had
yielded to the years, though her sight was still keen,
and memory’s vault stored all she had seen:

a world at war, a man on the moon,
a child born and leaving her nest, too soon  
a husband in the cold ground, she yet longing
for the sound of his voice  

now her daughter sat vigil at her side, stroking her
ethereal white hair, her plum veined hands: her touch,
her smile, the last language she would know,
completing life’s gratuitous circle  

her final thoughts returning to her child in the cradle,
a pink, round innocence, when she spoke the same to her
with a mother’s soft touch, the easy curve of her smile  
so few suns ago, it seemed, so few