Halftone Nostalgia

Picture postcards shuffle within dream

A woman glimpses herself as a teen kissing an early love
Like G-d who watches creation exhale in perfection
a first child at birth looks at this mother with flawless affinity
Another portrait depicts a forty year old's passion smattered

Leaving home her youngest son packs his room
the space vacuous except for those things remembered
She spots the elephant ride at the zoo with all three children
the bright sun warming her sleep in night's dead darkness

Her octogenarian mother in tenuous health folds
hands as if in worship   Recollection scattered
a parent's life resonates devoted servitude
but Mom never voiced  I love you

Her father sniffs hot chocolate   Marshmallows dissolve
He steers their sled   Trees part like the Reed Sea
Double shifts and dinners kept oven warm
cycle through mind pictures like fast moving clouds

Birdsong whistles between sleep and sun
Postcards lapse in disarray   Dream wakens to daybreak

cherry blossoms in spring and dawning love

Ryfkah 3/29/04