Lapsed ( In Memory ) Mother's weep, children sleep, so much violence ends in silence. Jewel Kilcher On that Friday afternoon when her key turned over the car's ignition, did she hear, yet ignore, the ominous shovel, the black and sooty shovel already wearing its coat of dust and ash -- can she stomach a mother's forever weep for marks of time that will never own their hour, for the remembered fetal kick, alive within maternal song. What bleak power in hands that blot out movement, lift a body, steal strawberry-blonde hair -- that summer hair, that summer girl, stolen from tomorrow. I am caught in eyes of a photograph, considering the requirements to straight spine a plea for innocence, a finger pointed at untouchable Johnny Walker, while a daughter, a daughter of the world, sleeps swaddled in sky-blue satin. Oh, Dominion attended sleep! And silence, tumbling like dominoes, resounds beyond chambered walls, black edge to black edge, on an eclipsed circuit back to mute stuffed toys whose eyes glare, open with defiance, in an empty bedroom where pom-poms hang limp and mourn. In memory of a thirteen year old girl, killed last week, at the hands of a drunk driver. She was a friend of my son's, a kind-hearted teen, a vital part of this community and a child of the universe. May she continue to light our path from the other side. Renee D. Schwiesow |
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