After long days of tending to my mother’s
needs, I would drive home from the house
where my parents raised me still
remembering the sound of music
that penetrated walls of bedrooms
in the earlier years where my brothers
and I slept night after night. The scent
of pancakes wafting through hallways
on Saturday mornings, the ever clanking
of tags from the family cat roaming
door to door until one of us opened
our bedroom cubical and whistled
a sharp but welcoming sign, signally
her to bolt for the nearest bed offered,
though mine was clearly the preferred
choice, if truth be told.
Those were the days of innocence
and laughter, when no one anticipated
concerns over tomorrows or yesterdays
nor secrets hidden between complicated
memories. Each of us closed off
to the other merely preoccupied
with the mysteries of adolescence
yet unaware we were in the midst of life
or some kind of strange pandemonium
called growing up.
How would I know there would be one
last drive when that house became quiet,
when my mother stopped breathing,
when no cat would pace that worn-out floor,
where no melody could be heard
through wallpapered walls
and the only fragrance noticed
was a lavender candle with its wavering flame
on my mother’s bedside table.
How unprepared I was for the soundlessness
of leaving or that final ride back
from there to here while carrying a lifetime
of recollections with no reason to return.
needs, I would drive home from the house
where my parents raised me still
remembering the sound of music
that penetrated walls of bedrooms
in the earlier years where my brothers
and I slept night after night. The scent
of pancakes wafting through hallways
on Saturday mornings, the ever clanking
of tags from the family cat roaming
door to door until one of us opened
our bedroom cubical and whistled
a sharp but welcoming sign, signally
her to bolt for the nearest bed offered,
though mine was clearly the preferred
choice, if truth be told.
Those were the days of innocence
and laughter, when no one anticipated
concerns over tomorrows or yesterdays
nor secrets hidden between complicated
memories. Each of us closed off
to the other merely preoccupied
with the mysteries of adolescence
yet unaware we were in the midst of life
or some kind of strange pandemonium
called growing up.
How would I know there would be one
last drive when that house became quiet,
when my mother stopped breathing,
when no cat would pace that worn-out floor,
where no melody could be heard
through wallpapered walls
and the only fragrance noticed
was a lavender candle with its wavering flame
on my mother’s bedside table.
How unprepared I was for the soundlessness
of leaving or that final ride back
from there to here while carrying a lifetime
of recollections with no reason to return.