Waiting

for mama...

One baby hummer peering upward, with sibling behind, waiting for mama deep in our old garden rubber tree. Canon 200mm | May 23rd, 2024

Clinging
little hands
on her
skirt
smells of
perfumed
air
and wisps
of feathers
touching
my cheeks
she moves
through
branches
rising
tree
of life
as earth
below so
cold 
plunged
my soul
before
one butterfly
kiss
her graying
hair
goodbye to
innocence
soar
the stolen
sky
where demons
cast smoke
blinding
heaven
and she
is perfecting
prayerfully
nesting
where once
she built
our home
a hidden
shelter
in loving
shadows
shielding
the world 
from
my gaze
waiting
for
mama.

Dedicated to the young women, and all the precious souls stolen on October 7th, 2023.

---

As I was gardening this week, I looked to where my husband told me, deep into the rubber tree to see them. All I could think of was how they were sitting alone waiting for their mama.

Aren’t we all? When we are sick, hurting, lost, in danger, stolen, our homing instinct runs toward the womb of our frail beginnings constantly hoping for home.

---

“I remember, May 1944, I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.”

- Elie Wiesel